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Missouri 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



• /SO. 
Publication No. 8. 



Attempts to Separate the West 
FROM THE American Union. 



RT. REV. C. F. ROBERTSON, D.D., LL.D. 



Missouri 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



Publication No. 8. 



Attempts TO Separate the West 
FROM THE American Union. 



•J^..:^- 



RT. REV. C. F. ROBERTSON, D.D., LL.D. 



/ J 



'6 /^^ 



NOTE. 

Below are given the editions of the works referred to in the 
following paper: 

History of the United States, by George Bancroft. lo vols. Boston, 1856-75. 

History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States, by George Bancroft. 
2 vols. New York, 1882. 

American State Papers. 38 vols. Washington, 1832. 

Secret Journals of the Acts and Proceedings of Congress. 4 vols. Boston, 1821. 

Writings of Washington, by Jared Sparks. 12 vols. Boston, 1837. 

Works of Benjamin Franklin, by Jared Sparks. 10 vols. Boston, 1840. 

Works of John Adams, edited by Chas. F. Adams. 10 vols. Boston, 1853. 

Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by H. A.Washington. 9 vols. Washington, 1853. 

Letters and Other Writings of James Madison. 4 vols. Philadelphia, r867. 

Lives and Times of the Chief Justices, by Henry Flanders. Philadelphia, 1855. 

Memoire Historique et Politique sur la Louisiane, par M. de Vergennes. Paris, 1802. 

History of Louisiana, by F. X. Martin. New Orleans, 1882. 

History of Louisiana — The Spanish Domination, by Chas. Gayarr^. New York, 1854. 

History of Louisiana — The American Domination, by Chas. Gay arr(^. New Orleans, 1885. 

Histore de la Louisiane, par M. Barb^ Marbois. Paris, 1829. 

Voyage h la Louisiane, par Bauduy des Lozierfes. 3 vols. Paris, 1802. 

Creoles of Louisiana, by George W. Cable. New York, 1884. 

Treaties and Conventions between the United States and Other Powers. Washington ,1871 

Memoirs of My Own Times, by James Wilkinson. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1816. 

Proofs of the Corruption of Gen. James Wilkinson, by Daniel Clark. Philadelphia, 1809. 
, Journal and Account of the Determination of the Boundaries of Louisiana, by Andrew 
Ellicott. Washington, 1803. 

Reports of the Trials of Col. Aaron Burr and Others, by David Robertson. 2 vols. 
Philadelphia, 1808. 

Trial of Aaron Burr for Treason. 2 vols. New York, 1875. 

History of Political Parties in the State of New York, by J. D. Hammond. 2 vols. 
Albany, 1842. 

Memoirs of Aaron Burr, by M. L. Davis. 2 vols. New York, 1836. 

History of the Discovery, etc., of the Valley of the Mississippi, by John W. Monette 
2 vols. New York, 1846. 



4 NOTE. 

^ Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, by J. F. H. Claiborne. Jackson, 1880. 
Historical Collections of Georgia, by George White. New York, 1855. 
Sketches of Louisiana, by Amos Stoddard. Philadelphia, 1812. 
History of Alabama, by A. J. Pickett. 2 vols. Charleston, 1851. 
Annals of Tennessee, by J. G. M. Ramsey. Charleston, 1853. 
History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, by Mann Butler. Louisville, 1834. 
History of Kentucky, by Wm. B. Allen. Louisville, 1872. 
Blennerhassett Papers, by Wm. H. Saftbrd. Cincinnati, 1864. 
Bland Papers. 2 vols. Petersburg, 1840. 

Letters and Times of the Tylers, by L. G. Tyler. 2 vols. Richmond, 1884. 
Life of Gen. William Eaton. Brookfield, 1813. 

Johns Hopkins' Historical and Political Studies. Third series. Baltimore, 1885. 
France and the United States, by Count A. de Circourt. Boston, 1877. 
Struggle for Neutrality in America. — Address New York Historical Society, by Charles 
Francis Adams. New York, 1871. 

Mississippi Question, by William Duane. Philadelphia, 1803. 
Transactions of the Oneida Historical Society. Utica, 1881. 

It may be noted that Nogales, Walnut Hills, Fort Adams 
and Vicksburg are the successive names of the same place. In 
the same way Chickasaw Bluffs and Memphis indicate the same 
place. The same is true of the Falls of the Ohio and Louisville. 



THE ATTEMPTS MADE TO SEPARATE THE WEST 
FROM THE AMERICAN UNION. 

The war of the Revolution was scarcely over and peace de- 
clared before there began an effort Avhich, in various forms, was 
-carried on for twenty years, to separate the western portion of 
the Union from the states on the Atlantic seaboard. The first 
attempt to divide the Union was by a line running nearly north 
and south, and along the Alleghany mountains. The cause 
which gave life to the movement was the vast extent of the ter- 
ritory of the states, the little knowledge of and communication 
at that time had between the distant parts, and the adverse in- 
terests which were created by the difference of climate, and 
antecedents, and previous nationality, of those now bound 
together in the American Union. 

There is considerable ignorance now, even on the part of well 
informed persons, as to the condition of the several parts of 
the country, with all our facilities of travel and communication. 
It is not strange that this should be much greater when few 
could ever go far from their own firesides, when newspapers 
were rare, and high rates of postage made frequent communi- 
cation impossible. As resulting from this, the provincial stamp 
set upon the several sections, by reason of climate, and soil, 
and occupation, would be more fixed, and antagonisms more 
emphatic than now, when all judgments and tastes are modified 
hy a ready and constant attrition of the most distant parts upon 
each other. 

It could not well be otherwise than that regions so distant 
and dissimilar, and in so many matters opposed in interest, 
should find it difficult to pass from the condition of separate and 
independent provinces to that of a federal union without many 



6 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

jarrings of discord. This would be especially likely in the 
earlier days of the government, before the relative rights and 
duties of the central and state administrations had been ad- 
justed, and when the burdens of debt incurred by a long war 
had to be borne, and distributed, and paid. In no part of the 
country was this strain greater than in the recently and sparsely 
settled regions west of the Alleghanies, where, along with a self- 
assertion and indisposition to submit easily to control, always 
characteristic of a frontier life, there was but little ability as yet 
to bear heavy exactions of impost and taxation, and perhaps nO' 
very great sense of the degree of previous protection extended 
by the central government, as calling from them justly for any 
large self-sacrifices now. They were poor, and had with great 
hardships made homes and settlements. The Atlantic states 
were wealthier, and had done little for them. They were not 
patient under any heavy burdens to be put on them now. 

In order to come fairly to a consideration of these early chaf- 
ings against the new and strange bonds of union, it will be 
necessary to remind ourselves of the political situation of the 
Mississippi valley at that time. 

On the third of November, 1762, the French king ceded to 
Spain all the country known under the name of Louisiana,*" 
which itself, in 17 12, Louis XIV had defined in his letters patent 
to Crozat to be all the country between Mexico and Carolina, 
the river Mississippif from the sea to the Illinois, the Missouri 
river, the Wabash, and all the land, lakes and rivers flowing 
into any part of the river Mississippi. 

This donation was accepted, but the transaction was kept 
secret, and the king of France continued to act as sovereign. 
In the treaty of Paris, in 1763, between Spain and France on 
the one side and Great Britain on the other, it was agreed that 
the limits of the French and British possessions should be a 
line drawn along the middle of the Mississippi river from its 
source to the river Iberville; along the middle of that stream, 

*Vergennes, Mem. Sur la Louis., pp. 32-3. ^ 

■f'Martin Louisiana, p. 114. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 7 

and of the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain* to the sea; and 
that all on the left side of the Mississippi river, except the town 
and island of New Orleans, should belong to the king of Eng- 
land. New Orleans and the country to the west were to belong 
to the king of Spain. 

In the same year Great Britain divided Florida into two 
provinces. West Florida was bounded by the Appalachicola 
river on the east, and by the thirty-first degree of latitude on 
the north. In March, 1764, on the representation that impor- 
tant settlements to the north had been left out, the northern 
boundary was made along a line due east from the mouth of the 
Yazoo river to the Appalachicola. In 1777, Great Britain 
purchased of the Choctaws the Natchez district, extending 
along the Mississippi river from latitude thirty-one, one hun- 
dred and ten miles northward to the mouth of the Yazoo, f 

In November, 1782, in the preliminary articles, and on the 
third of September, 1783, in the deiinitive treaty of peace be- 
tween the United States and Great Britain, the southern bound- 
ary of the United States was determined to be a line drawn 
from the Mississippi river due east in the northernmost;}; part 
of the thirty-first degree of latitude to the Chattahoochie river, 
thence to its junction with the Flint river ; thence to the head 
of the St. Mary's river; thence to the ocean; in all this coin- 
ciding with the boundary of east and west Florida, as estab- 
lished in 1763 by Great Britain. 

On the same day the treaty of peace between Great Britain 
and Spain declared an entire cession in full right of east and 
west Florida to Great Britain to Spain without defining the 
northern boundary. 

From this, as was natural,_and, as Pontalba asserts, as England 
intended, arose a dispute between the United States and Spain. 
The United States claimed, under its treaty with Great Britain, 
that its southern boundary line was the thirty-first degree. 
Spain, on the other hand, claimed, as part of west Florida, all 

*Gayarr6, third ser., p. 93. 
't'Claiborne, Miss., p. 98 
J Treaties U. S. p. 316. 



8 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

of the territory south of the line running east from the mouth 
of the Yazoo river, which was one hundred and ten miles fur- 
ther north. To strengthen her title, in June, 1784, Spain made 
a treaty at Pensacola with the Creeks, Choctaws and Chicka- 
saws inhabiting this district, by which they conceded the Span- 
ish title, and engaged to support it. Subsequently, also, Alex- 
ander McGillivray, head chief of the Creeks, and agent of the 
other tribes of the Muscogee confederacy, acknowledged him- 
self subject to Spain. 

Spain had possession of the disputed territory, under the 
conquest of Galvez, and refused to surrender it to the United 
States. She erected forts at Nogales, now Vicksburg, and 
subsequently at New Madrid, and she strengthened her garri- 
sons at Manchac, Baton Rouge and Natchez. Both powers had 
equitable titles, the dispute arising from the discrepancy in the 
terms of the treaty made by Great Britain with the two nations. 
Of course, all this occasioned great bitterness between the powers, 
and also individuals of each nation. 

The district west of the Aileghanies, now comprising the 
states of Kentucky and Tennessee, was rapidly filling with 
adventurous persons, many of whom had been in the Revolu- 
tionary armies. The severity of Indian depredations was no 
longer so severely felt, and towns were springing up. The rich- 
ness of the soil was bringing forth abundant harvests of wheat, 
and corn, and tobacco, which could only with difficulty seek 
a market east of the mountains, and must consume themselves 
in the cost of transit. The natural channel of trade was down 
the Ohio, Cumberland and Mississippi rivers, and the. most ad- 
vantageous market would be New Orleans. On account of the 
bitterness, however, between the nations, previous to 1787 ^^^ 
those who ventured on the Mississippi river had their property 
seized by the first Spanish vessel that was met ; and little or no 
communication was kept up between the respective countries. 

The free navigation of the Mississippi river, south of the 
thirty-first degree, had been reluctantly yielded to Spain.* In 

* Writings of Madison, IV. , p. 558. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION, 9 

1780-81, when the preliminaries of peace were being discussed 
in Paris and Madrid, the mutiny of the Pennsylvania Hne was 
■causing anxiety, and the British forces under Cornwallis and 
Tarleton were overrunning the South.* There was consequently 
.a fear on the part of the delegates in Congress from South Car- 
olina and Georgia that, if a peace was then forced by the 
European powers, the principle of iiti possidetis wouid cause 
those states to fall into the hands of Great Britain, which occu- 
pied them then. To prevent this, and secure the important 
•adhesion of Spain, the American ministers were instructed that, 
if Spain inflexibly demanded it as a condition of alliance, the 
•concession of our claim to the free navigation of the Mississippi 
river, south of the thirty-first degree, should be allowed. 

Years had passed and peace was declared, but the United 
States were still under the confederacy, and suffering from aU 
the weakness which came from that temporary arrangement. 
-Its seat was in New York, at a great distance from the Mississ- 
ippi valley: and it was but slightly aware of, or concerned 
about, the consequence of that remote region. In 1785 Mr. 
Jay, who was conducting a negotiation with Gardoqui,the Span- 
ish representative on this subject, having been called upon by 
Congress to give his views on the matter, recommended that 
it would be expedient to conclude a treaty with Spain, limited 
to twenty or thirty years, and for the United States to stipulate 
■that during the term of the treaty they would forbear to nav- 
igate the Mississippi below their southern boundary.! This view 
was sanctioned by the seven more northern, and opposed by 
the five more southern states.]: Seven states in Congress 
authorized Jay to conclude a treaty with Gardoqui, and restrict 
,the right of the United States to the Mississippi river, while 
the article of the confederation expressly declared that the 
United States should enter into no treaty unless nine states in 
'Congress assented to it. But Spain would not even agree to 

* White, Georgia, p. 106. 
"f- Butler, History Kentucky, p. 156. 
l.J Lives Chief Justices, I, 364. 



lO THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

this Stipulation, because it implied an ultimate right in the United 
States to navigate the river.* 

Naturally this apparent indifference or hostility on the part of 
Congress to what was of vital importance to the western coun- 
try, the free navigation of the Mississippi river, and the possi- 
bility thus of getting a market for their produce, had an irritating^ 
effect upon the excitable population of the section. This cause 
of anger was intensified by the delay of Congress in complying 
with the request of Kentucky to be received as a state in the 
Union. The cause of this delay, and afterwards the rejection 
of the overture, was the fear of disturbing the sectional balance. 
The eastern states, by a majority of seven to six, were not will- 
ing to give their assent to the admission of the district of Ken- 
tucky into the Union, as an independent state, unless Vermont,! 
or the district of Maine, was brought forward at the same time. 
Back of this disinclination was a further cause. In the settlement 
of the terms of peace with Great Britain, Congress had aban- 
doned the check of a two-thirds vote on commecrial questions, 
and substituted that of a majority. In the haste to relieve the 
embarrassments of trade, and restore prosperous business rela- 
tions, the more commercial states of the north, not waiting for 
Great Britain to comply with the conditions set for it, such as- 
the surrender of slaves, and the giving up of the posts on the 
northwestern frontier, immediately removed all restrictions fromi 
trade, and left Great Britain, with her large capital free, to com- 
pete for the business of the states. This operated to the dis- 
advantage of Virginia and the other southern states,! in hand- 
ing over their tobacco to the monopoly of England. This- 
cause would also act as a bar on the admission of any new south- 
ern state that would be likely to change the majority and disturb 
the existing commercial arrangements. 

Spain, however, was on the alert to use for her advantage the 
anger of the people of Kentucky, aroused by the seeming hos- 

* Secret Jour. Cong., IV, p. 296. 

t Bancroft, History Constitution, I, 373. 

+ Bland Papers, II, 83. Tyler Letters, I, 102. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 11 

tility of the Government of the United States to the dearest 
interests of the West. 

Among those who had come to Lexington, Kentucky, in 
1784, to settle was General James Wilkinson. He was born in 
Maryland, marched with Arnold in 1775 through Maine to 
Quebec, was at the surrender of Saratoga, and had fallen into 
disrepute with Washington, and resigned in 1778, because he had 
told to Lord Stirling, while under the influence of wine, the 
expressions used by Conway to Gates to the disparagement of 
the generalship of Washington. He was a wordy, officious, 
consequential person, who liked to make a profit, and he be- 
came engaged in the dry goods trade. In June, 1787, he de 
scended the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, with a cargo 
of tobacco and flour, determined to try his enterprise and ad- 
dress at the seats of the Spanish government in Louisiana. 
He was successful, and Governor Miro granted General Wilkin- 
son permission to bring tobacco to New Orleans on favorable 
terms. Wilkinson also impressed the importance of his influ- 
ence to such an extent upon the Spanish authorities that a 
monopoly and special remissions of duty were made to him, so 
that for some time all the trade from the Ohio was carried on 
in his name, and a line from him sufficed to ensure to the 
owner of a boat every privilege and protection that he could 
desire. 

The Spanish government at this time, 1786-87, had pro- 
jected a plan for colonizing Louisiana from the United States ; 
and Gardoqui, the Spanish minister in New York, had sent sev- 
eral vessels to the Mississippi with colonists. In the depression 
that existed during the latter years of the confederacy, when 
the United States had not the ability to pay its old officers and 
soldiers,* General Steuben, Colonel George Morgan and other 
Revolutionary officers of rank opened a treaty with Gardoqui 
for the grant of an extensive district of country west of the 
Mississippi, upon the plan of establishing a military colony 
under particular privileges and exemptions. In pursuance of 

■" Wilkinson, Mem. II, 3. 



12 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

this, in the winter of 1788-89, Colonel Morgan, of New Jersey, 
under the sanction of Gardoqui, came down the Ohio with a 
considerable body of colonists. Gardoqui had made to him a 
concession of from twelve to fifteen millions of acres on the 
west side of the Mississippi river, from the mouth of the St. 
Francis river to Point Cinq Hommes. He proposed to estab- 
lish a city which in ten years would reach a hundred thous- 
and inhabitants, as near the mouth of the Ohio as the nature 
of the land would permit, and he called the place New Madrid, 
in compliment to the Spaniards. To Morgan Gardoqui gave 
the concession of a free post. Thus privileged and happily 
situated, commanding the trade of the Mississippi and Ohio 
rivers, the place would intercept all the products of the coun- 
try going south. 

Such a plan, however, did not suit the purposes of Wilkinson. 
He had his own scheme of colonization, which he broached to 
Governor Miro, by which he proposed the settlement of several 
thousand families in west Florida, or on the Arkansas and 
White rivers, to whom lands were to be granted in proportion 
to their numbers and condition, and for whom Wilkinson was 
to be allowed from one to three hundred dollars a family. For 
this purpose he presented a list of names of persons in Ken- 
tucky as emigrants, in order to give consistency to his proposi- 
tion. Having this scheme view, although.it was never realized, 
Wilkinson discouraged the plans of other colonists on the plea 
that trade would be diverted from New Orleans. The New 
Madrid concession was therefore withdrawn ; the colonists scat- 
tered, and a fort was erected there. 

Wilkinson, on his visit to New Orleans, determined also to 
demand for his services, for promoting the schemes of coloni- 
zation into Spanish territory, the privilege of furnishing a con- 
siderable annual supply of tobacco to the Mexican market, 
which he thought would secure immense fortunes to himself 
and his friends.* 

As might be presumed, Wilkinson did not receive these fa- 

* Clark, Proofs against Wilkinson, p. 13. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. I J 

vors from the Spanish governor without making pledges in re- 
turn. He declared that there was a general abhorrence through- 
out the western -parts against Congress, because of its indiffer- 
ence to their interests in the matter of the navigation of the 
Mississippi river, and that on this account they were on the 
point of separating from the Union. He appealed to Spanish 
fears* on the idea that the British, who still held the north- 
western forts, could easily unite with the increasing strength of 
the western settlements, and invade and take possession of 
Lousiana, and even of Mexico. Nor did Wilkinson leave 
New Orleans without a pledge to devote himself to the task 
of delivering up Kentucky into the hands of the Spanish king. 

Wilkinson did not make this declaration without knowing of 
the intense discontent which existed in that district. The 
growing population were deeply excited because they had in 
vain petitioned Congress to secure for them the free use of the 
Mississippi river, without which it was useless for them to till 
the ground, since they had no market for their produce; and 
they were determined to take the matter into their own hands. 
They were divided up into different parties. f One was for de- 
claring themselves independent of the United States, and form- 
ing a new republic, in close alliance with Spain. Another was 
in favor of becoming a part of Louisiana, and submitting to the 
laws of Spain. Another party desired to declare war with 
Spain, and seize New Orleans. Another wanted to prevail on 
Congress to extort from Spain the free navigation of the river ; 
and still another party wished to have France recover Louisi- 
ana and extend her protection to Kentucky. 

As Congress, on the third of July, 1788, finally decided to 
postpone the application of Kentucky to be received into the 
Union, in one week from that day Mr. John Brown, who rep- 
resented Kentucky before Congress, wrote a letter to the Presi- 
dent of the Kentucky convention that Mr. Gardoqui, the Span- 
ish minister, in a conversation, had stated that | "if the peo- 

* Gayarre, Spanish Domination, p. 182. 
"t-Gayarre, Spanish Domin. p. 252. 
J Butler, p. 171. 



14 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

pie of Kentucky would erect themselves into an independent 
state, and appoint a proper person to negotiate with him, he 
would enter into an arrangement with them for, the exportation 
of their produce to New Orleans, on terms of mutual advantage." 

About this time, May 15, 1788, Wilkinson wrote to Miro that 
Congress,* because of the present federal compact, can neither 
dispose of men or money. The new government, should it es- 
tablish itself, will have to encounter difficulties, which will keep 
it weak for three or four years, before the expiration of which, 
" I have good grounds," he said, "to hope that we shall have 
completed our negotiations, and shall have become too strong 
to be subjected by any force which may be sent against us." 
And, also, " When this people shall find out that they can pro- 
cure articles not manufactured among us more conveniently 
through this river, the dependent state in which we are will 
cease, and with it all motives for connection with the other side 
of the Appalachian Mountains." 

Wilkinson was, in the meantime, shipping his cargoes to New 
Orleans, and prosecuting his profitable business ventures.f His 
agent, Major Dunn, gave it out as certain that the next year 
Kentucky would act as an independent state, and Miro writes 
to the home government, as from Wilkinson, that "the direc- 
tion of the current of the rivers, which run in front of their 
dwellings, points clearly to the power to which they ought to 
ally themselves. ";{; 

In the Kentucky convention of November, 1788, the urgency 
of Wilkinson bore on the two points : || First, the importance 
of independence, and of the formation of a state constitution, 
without waiting for the previous consent of the parent state of 
Virginia ; and second, the securing of the free navigation of 
the Mississippi, even though this could only be secured by a 
Spanish connection. In reciting the results of that convention 
to Miro, Wilkinson writes: "To consolidate the interests § and 

* Gayarr^ S. D. , p. 210. 
"j- Bancroft, Consti., I, p. 398. 
X Gayarre S. D. p. 212. 
II Butler, Ken., p. 172. 
^ Gayarre S. D., p. 227. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 5 

confirm the confidence of our frien(;^s, to try our strength, to 
provoke the resentment of Congress with a view to stimulate 
that body into some invidious act which might excite the pas- 
sions of the people — these are the motives which influenced me 
. . In order to prevent the suspicions and feeHngs of dis- 
trust already existing here, and inflame the animosity between 
the eastern and western states, Spain must resort to every arti- 
fice in her power. . . . Every manifestation of the power 
of Spain, and of the debility of the United States, every evi- 
dence of the resolution of the former to retain exclusively to 
herself the right of navigation on the Mississippi, will facilitate 
our views. Every circumstance, also, that will tend to impede 
our admission as an independent state, will increase the discon- 
tent of the people and favor the execution of our plan." 

Wilkinson also sought to increase in the Spanish governor 
the sense of obligation for his services by dilating on the ad- 
dress* with which he had caused the British Doctor Connally, 
an emissary from Lord Dorchester, the governor of Canada, 
who had come to offer English assistance in any expedition in 
the west to secure the free navigation of the Mississippi, to re- 
turn affrighted to his own country after having accomplished 
nothing. 

The result of it all was that the Spanish governor, who was 
not without his doubts all along that Wilkinson had motives of 
his own, commercial or otherwise, in his pro-Spanish declara- 
tions, sent him five thousand dollars for the outlay that Wilkin- 
son declared that he had been at, and half as much more with 
which to corrupt Marshall and Muter, who were opposed to 
the Spanish connection.! 

The causes operating in Kentucky in favor of Spain also 
manifested themselves in the western settlements of North 
Carolina. In order to make a fund for the payment of her 
debts, Congress had asked the states to cede to her all their 
vacant lands to the west, that they might be sold to pay Rev- 

*Blennerhassett Papers, p. 87. Gayarre, S. D., p. 235. 
•^Gayarre, S. D., p. 256. 



l6 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

olutionary claims.'^ North Carolina did this, and ceded the two- 
counties of Cumberland and Washington, which constitute the 
present state of Tennessee. In compliance with this act the 
people assembled, under the leadership of General Sevier, the 
hero of the battle of King's Mountain, and proceeded to or- 
ganize the state of Frank land. In a few months after North 
Carolina rescinded its previous action and recalled its cession 
of land.-f- This enraged the people west of the mountains, 
who were poor, and Jiad borne privations, and were harassed 
by taxes, and the great distance of the courts in which they 
might seek redress. There ensued, therefore, some acts of 
violence in the contention between the two jurisdictions. The 
settlers on the Cumberland river, which ran through the district 
and sought the gulf, were deeply interested in the navigation 
of the Mississippi, and, therefore, were operated on by the same 
motives as those which were stirring up Kentucky, j 

On the twelfth of September, 1788, in his resentment. Gen- 
eral Sevier wrote to Gardoqui to inform him that the inhabit- 
ants of Frankland were unanimous in their vehement desire to 
form an alliance and treaty of commerce with Spain, and put 
themselves under her protection. They named the county of 
Cumberland, in West Tennessee, Miro, in compliment of the 
Spanish governor. These overtures were flattering to Spanish 
pride, but had to be received with caution, because Spain was 
at peace with the United States. A concession was, however, 
made, that the people of the Washington and Miro districts 
should have the privilege of carrying their produce down the 
Mississippi to the market of New Orleans on a duty of fifteen 
per cent., which Miro reserved the right of reducing accord- 
ing to his pleasure in behalf of any men of influence who might 
be named by the Spanish agent. Miro communicated with 
Wilkinson with regard to these negotiations, and a system of 

*While these lands were a cause of contention, they furnished also a common interest 
which kept the country together. Johns Hopkins' Historical Studies, third ser., I., 
Introduction. 

i" Spark's Franklin, X, p. 290. 

X Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 298 ; Gayarre, S. D. p. 257. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 1/ 

cypher messages between them was devised to ensure secrecy. 
In the year 1789, a powerful company was formed in South 
Carolina, and purchased from the state of Georgia an immense 
tract of land, including fifty-two thousand square miles, and 
extending on the Mississippi river from the Yazoo to the neigh- 
borhood of Natchez. As this was in the debatable ground 
between the United States and Spain, no time was lost by the 
company in endeavoring to come to a good understanding with 
the Spanish authorities in New Orleans. Their alliance was 
sought, and the company declared its desire to form itself into 
an advantageous rampart for Spain. Miro communicated the 
business to Wilkinson, who immediately addressed himself to 
the South Carolina gentlemen, protesting his own disinterested- 
ness, and influence with the Spanish governor, and their need 
to have the services in New Orleans for the negotiations of a 
gentleman of distinction, with full powers, and offering him- 
self for the position. He loaned to Captain Cape, the agent 
of the South Carolina company, according to his statement to 
the Spanish governor, three thousand dollars, to secure his in- 
fluence. His efforts, for a time, did not seem to be without 
result. Miro praised Wilkinson for the part that he had acted 
toward the company. On the twenty-fourth of May, James. 
O'Fallon, the general agent for the South Carolina company, 
wrote to Miro, from Lexington, Kentucky, the residence of 
Wilkinson, that he had "prevailed upon the company to con- 
sent to be the slaves of Spain, that they had formed the resolu- 
tion of separating themselves from the Union, and that all that 
they desired from the Spanish Crown was a secret cooperation, 
which would soon ripen into a sincere friendship."* 

Thus, throughout the whole west, the restlessness of the 
frontier settlers, along with the feebleness of the confederacy, 
worked, with the machinations of Spain, to bring about a dis- 
position for the severance of the western country from the Uni- 
ted States, with the hope of placing it under the protection of 
that power which held the key of the situation, in the posses- 

*Gayarr6, S. D. p, 289. 



l8 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

sion of the mouth of the Mississippi river. And in this busi- 
ness General Wilkinson was the principal agent of the Spanish 
governor, and a stipendiary upon the Spanish treasury. Thus, 
later, when his offices seemed to bear less results, the governor 
writes to the home secretary that in his opinion the general 
should be retained in the service with an annual pension of two 
thousand dollars ; and he also recommends that a pension be 
granted to Colonel Sebastian, of Kentucky, because "he will 
be able to enlighten me on the conduct of Wilkinson, and on 
what we have to expect from the plans of the said brigadier- 
general."* One spy was hired to watch the other spy. 

But such a plan of securing Spanish dominancy in the west 
could not permanently be successful. In the first place it was 
founded upon deceit and stealth. Then the texture of charac- 
ter of the hardy American would inevitably in the end prevail 
as a ruling interest and controlling power as against the weaker 
and subtler nature of the Spaniard. Furthermore, the schem- 
ing had profited by the weakness of the confederacy. This, 
however, in 1789, gave place to the greater efficiency of the 
Union under the present constitution; and the firm and wise 
.administration of Washington soon began to tell in the respect 
for authority, and the greater cohesion of the parts. Besides 
this, the reduction of the tariff on the part of Spain on ship- 
irients down the Mississippi, diminished the inducements for 
separation, and the greater numbers and boldness of the western 
settlements made it clear to the Spanish authorities that they 
must change their tone of menace. 

In the year 1791, the Spanish intrigues in the west and south 
began to slacken from want of success, and the United States 
set on foot persuasives, through its minister in Madrid, to have 
Spain give up New Orleans, and confine itself to the western 
bank of the Mississippi river. 

While these efforts were making, the west came to feel some 
of the effects^of an agitation which was dividing political parties 
in the east, and had its origin on the continent of Europe. A 



*Gayarre, S. D., p. zi 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 9 

■supposed inclination * towards Great Britain, our old antago- 
nist, was a n:iark of the Federal party, which dominated in the 
-administration of President Washington. A sympathy with 
France, our former ally, was the characteristic of the Republi- 
can party, which was in opposition, and whose leader a little 
later was Jefferson. The one side emphasized the necessity 
of strengthening the Federal Union ; the other party asserted 
the original rights of the states, and enlarged upon the dangers 
of centralization. The bitterness between the parties M^as for 
many* years most violent. 

In 1793, the sympathy in this country with France, which 
was in the throes of revolution, took the form of the organiza- 
tion of democratic societies, at first in Philadelphia, which 
violently proclaimed the most extreme anarchical notions of 
universal rights, such as had broken to pieces the social order 
in France. There would, therefore, be little wonder that in 
Kentucky, where Great Britain was charged with being the in- 
stigator of the barbarous Indian depredations, and where many 
of the old soldiers lived who had fought along side of the 
French during the Revolutionary struggle, similar societies 
should be organized.f Genet, the French minister in this coun- 
try, appealed to the alliance of 1778 as the ground on which 
we should side with his country in its differences with England, 
made a triumphal progress through the states, dealt out com- 
missions to privateers, enlisted officers and men,;}; organized 
Jacobin clubs, and sent out four § agents to Kentucky, who set 
on foot societies in Georgetown, Lexington and Paris. They is- 
sued addresses, in which they traded on the grievances of the 
western people, enlarged on the advantages which Avould flow 
from their separating themselves from the rest of the United 
States, and the glorious results which would accrue from going 
down and freeing Louisiana from the thraldom of Spain and 

*Barbe Marbois, His. Louisiane. p. 241. 
•Y Blennerhasset Pap. p. loi. 
J Lives Chiet Justices, I, p. 390. 
^ American State Pap., I., 455. 



20 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

setting up a republic there. They called upon the French in 
Louisiana to rise against their present rulers. 

A force of two thousand men was enlisted for this expedi- 
tion, at the head of which George Rogers Clark* accepted the 
office of "Major General of the Army of France, and Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Legions of the Mississ- 
ippi river." 

The firmness of Washington compelled the recall of Genet, 
the French minister, and this caused the collapse of the intended 
movement against the Spanish posts, f 

At this time there were symptoms of a war between Great 
Britain and Spain. The former power had not yet given up 
possession of the forts on our northwestern frontiers. It held 
them with the hope that they might be of advantage in 
strengthening its hold on the western parts of America. There 
is good reason for believing that its purpose was, if war had 
been declared with Spain, to march its troops through the west- 
ern territories and seize upon Louisiana. The Spanish minister 
alleged this to our government, and induced it to strengthen its 
frontier posts and issue strict orders against the passage of any 
British troops through our territory. Our government was the 
more induced to do this as it was endeavoring to persuade the 
Spanish ministry to consent to a cession of the district east of 
the Mississippi. 

So soon, however, as the danger of invasion was past, the 
Spanish governor at New Orleans, Carondolet, again imposed 
restrictions upon the commerce on the Mississippi, endeavoring 
thus to show to the western people that their only hope lay in 
a separation from the United States. Along with this, re- 
newed efforts were made to subsidize leading citizens of the 
west in favor of the Spanish interests. The United States were 
being pressed from without by troubles with Great Britain, 
France and Spain. The whiskey insurrection in Pennsylvania 
was putting;}: to a strain the relations of federal and state au- 

* Butler, p. 224. 

•f Barbe Marbois, p. 167. 

X Monette, History, Valley Miss. II, p. 202. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 21 

thority, and requiring the militia of several states to quell it, 
Hamilton's financial plans had not yet begun to ease the public 
•credit. All the northwestern tribes of Indians were harassing 
the Ohio and Kentucky settlements. England on the north- 
west, and Spain on the southwest, were pressing on both flanks 
of the western territories, to cause them to break loose from 
the Union into permanent separation. 

While the United States were pushing Spain for a settlement 
■of the boundary line, and for amicable commercial arrange- 
ments by diplomacy, Spain was endeavoring to break the force 
of the pressure by securing the influence of the leading men of 
Kentucky on its side by bribery. In the summer of 1795,* 
■Carondolet sent Gayoso up the Mississippi river, with a force, 
under the pretense that it was to be used for the building of a 
fort at the Chickasaw bluffs ; but Gayoso went on to New 
Madrid, and informed Don Thomas Portell that he had impor- 
tant dispatches which must go forward immediately to Ken- 
tucky. Portell gave them to Thomas Power, who had been 
■charged with a similar secret embassy before. Power made his 
way to Kentucky and delivered Carondolet's letter to Wilkin- 
son, who had two years before reentered the military service of 
the United States. Wilkinson and Power had nocturnal meet- 
ings in Cincinnati, and Wilkinson gave him letters to Carondo- 
let, in which he recommended the following points to the 
Spanish governor:! First, that cargoes should be sent up from 
New Orleans to the Ohio river, by which the confidence of the 
people should be gained, and the channel pointed out and made 
familiar through which they could best receive foreign com- 
modities. Second, the mouth of the Ohio should be strongly 
fortified, and works erected of such strength as to arrest for one 
■campaign the progress of any army that should come down 
from the north. Tliird, a bank, with a million of dollars of cap- 
ital should be established in Kentucky, and the leading char- 
acters in the country be made directors. Fourth, General 

* Clark, p. 221. 

+ Gayarr^, S. D., p. 360. Clark, Notes, p. 34. 



22 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

George Rogers Clark, and his adherents, who had been in the 
pay of the French RepubHc* recently, should be brought intO' 
the service of Spain, which should increase its agents in Ken- 
tucky, and establish a magazine at New Madrid. 

Under Wilkinson's direction, Power was joined at Redbanks 
by Colonel Sebastian, and it was intended that they should be 
joined by Messrs. Innes, Murray and Nicholas. These last did 
not come, and Power and Sebastian went to New Madrid, and' 
thence proceeded to New Orleans to meet the governor. The 
next year Power again communicated dispatches from Carondo- 
let to Wilkinson, and carried him nine thousand dollars con- 
cealed in barrels of sugar, f 

In the meantime the negotiations between the United States 
and Spain reached the point that, on the twenty-seventh of Oc- 
tober, 1795, a treaty was signed in Madrid,^ which stipulated 
that the southern boundary of the United States should be the 
thirty-first degree, and that within six months after the ratifica- 
tion of the treaty the troops of each power should retire to its. 
own side of the boundary ; that, within that time, also, com- 
missions on each side should be appointed to run and mark the 
line ; that the middle of the Mississippi river should be the 
western boundary of the United States to the thirty-first par- 
allel ; that the whole width of the river from its source to the 
sea should be free to the people of the United States, and that 
the people of the United States should, for a period of three- 
years, be permitted to use the port of New Orleans as a place 
of deposit and export, with only local charges, and that after 
this the time, by further negotiation, might be extended, or 
some other point on the island of New Orleans designated for 
the purpose. 

Although this treaty was thus concluded, it was very evident 
that there was very little idea that the measure was anything- 
more than a temporary piece of diplomatic finesse, which 

* Blenn., Papers, p. loi. 

"t* Clark, Notes, p. 37. 

J Gayarr6, S. D., p. 356. Treaties U. S., p. 776. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 2$ 

would not be carried into effect, and would soon be abrogated. 
Spain was on the point of declaring war against Great Britain, 
and desired to secure the United States as a neutral power, be- 
tween Canada and Louisiana, to prevent invasion on the part 
of Great Britain., Not for one moment did the efforts in the 
direction of subsidizing individuals cease. 

In June, 1796, Governor Gayoso* wrote that the treaty of 
the year before never would be carried into effect. Great Brit- 
ain had, in 1794, made a treaty with the United States, the ob- 
ject of which was to attach them to her interests, and to coun- 
terbalance this Spain had made her treaty of limits. As Great 
Britain had totally failed in her object, f the governor thought 
that Spain should not regard her stipulations. Besides, it was 
expected that several states would separate from the Union, 
and this would absolve Spain from its engagements. He con- 
cluded, therefore, that nothing but the free navigation of the 
Mississippi would be the result of the treaty. 

On the death of General Wayne, in December, 1796, Wilkin- 
son succeeded to the command of the American army. He 
had intimated to Baron de Carondolet that he was getting 
ready a force to accompany the commissioner, Mr. Andrew 
Ellicott, to take possession of the forts of Natchez and Walnut 
Hills, and to run the territorial line between the possessions of 
the two powers under the treaty. The baron was determined 
not to surrender the territory. He, therefore, secretly commis- 
sioned Mr. Power, in May, 1797, to go to General Wilkinson, 
in order to state to him that, on account of the doubts as to the 
manner of delivering the posts, and the apprehension that a 
British force was marching from Canada to attack upper Louisi- 
ana, he was resolved to retain the forts until he could receive 
the decision of the Spanish minister. He, therefore, requested 
that the march of the American troops be suspended until such 
decision could be reached. 

The Spaniards had some grounds for the fear which they ex- 

* Martin, Louis, p. 269. 

+ Stoddard's Sketches, p. 99. 



24 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

pressed. The Spanish governor still retained possession of the 
post at Natchez. So long as this was done, it kept open all the 
irritating^questions as to boundaries between the Americans in 
the districts of Tennessee and Mississipp, and the Indian tribes 
in that section. The Americans complained because their gov- 
ernment seemed so slow in asserting its rights against Spain 
and protecting them from the Indians. At this juncture, in 
April, 1797, Mr. Blount, the United States Senator from Ten- 
nessee, who ^had a wide influence in his state, entered into a 
secret correspondence* with the English envoy in this country, 
Mr. Liston, the object of which was to induce England to send 
forces from Canada by Lake Michigan, down the Mississippi 
river, where boats and abundance of provisions would be sent 
to them from Kentucky and Tennessee ; and they would rapidly 
descend the river, overcome the feeble Spanish garrison at New 
Orleans, and occupy the whole of Louisiana and Florida. This 
correspondence, however, in transmission to England, fell into 
the hands of a person who thought it his duty to send it to the 
President. In consequence of this, the plan fell through, and 
Mr. Blount was expelled from the Senate. The scheme, how- 
ever, affrighted the Spaniards when they heard of it. 

Baron Carondelet, when he therefore sought to delay the 
giving up of the posts on the Mississippi river, and sent Mr. 
Powers on his mission, gave him instructions so confidential 
that he was only to retain them in his memory. j He directed 
him, while traveling through the western country, to sound the 
disposition of the people as he went. He gave him also a sys- 
tem of signs in writing his dispatches, which would indicate 
whether he found a hostile condition, and as to the number of 
pieces of artillery and any other warlike preparations which he 
might find. He was also to persuade the people, as he was 
able, that the delivery of the posts to the United States was 
opposed to the interests of the western people, who, as they 
would have one day to separate from the Atlantic states, would 

*Barbe Marboi's, p. 176. American State Papers II, p. 76. Ellicott's Journal, p. 64. 
+ Gayarre, S. D., p. 360. Wilkinson, Mem., II, note 46. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 25 

find themselves without communication with lower Louisiana, 
from whence they might expect powerful help in artillery, arms, 
ammunition and money as soon as ever the western states 
should determine on a separation ; and that for this reason the 
west, in allowing Congress to take these posts from Spain, was 
forging fetters for itself. 

The baron then stated to Power some propositions which he 
desired him to place before Messrs. Sebastian, Innes, Murray 
and Nicholas, and any other persons pointed out by them. 

First. They were to exert all their influence in impressing 
on the minds of the inhabitants of the western country a con- 
viction of the necessity of their withdrawing and separating 
themselves from the federal Union, and forming an indepen- 
dent government wholly unconnected with that of the Atlantic 
states. To prepare for this, the most eloquent and popular 
writers should, in well-timed publications, expose, in the most 
-striking point of view, the inconveniences and disadvantages 
that a longer connection with and dependence on the Atlantic 
states must draw upon them ; and the benefits they will cer- 
tainly reap from a secession ought to be forcibly pointed out. 
The baron pledged himself to appropriate one hundred thou- 
sand dollars for the use of those who should engage in this 
"work, and to indemnify those who should lose any positions 
thereby. * 

Second — Immediately after the declaration of independence, 
Fort Massac, on the Ohio, near the mouth of the Cumberland, 
'was to be taken possession of by the new government, which 
would be furnished arms by the king of Spain, who would 
further engage to supply one hundred thousand dollars for rais- 
ing and maintaining such troops. 

Third — He was to endeavor to discover General Wilkinson's 
disposition, and he thought it scarcely possible that he would 
prefer to command the army of the Atlantic states to that of 
being the Washington of the western states, that at the slight- 
est movement he will be named as the general of the new re- 

*Clark, Notes, p. 82. 



26 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

public, that the army is weak, and devoted to Wilkinson, and' 
nothing is required, but an instant of firmness to make the- 
people of the west perfectly happy. To suffer the instant to 
escape would be for them to place themselves forever under the 
oppression of the Atlantic states. 

The baron declared that Spain, limiting itself to the posses- 
sion of the forts of Natchez and Walnut Hills, would cede to 
the western states all the east bank of the Mississippi from 
thirty-one degrees to the Ohio, which would form a very ex- 
tensive and powerful republic, and that Spain would not inter- 
fere with its constitution and laws. Mr. Power was also 
directed to conciliate Mr. Ellicott, the American commissioner, 
and endeavor .to induce him to come to New Orleans.* 

Mr. Power went secretly through Tennessee overland, to- 
avoid the forts, to Kentucky, and had an interview vvith Se- 
bastian, and the others, and then went on to Detroit, where- 
General Wilkinson was. Wilkinson was no longer so sanguine 
as to the hopefulness of a separation of the western states,. 
for the reason that so many of the purposes for which there 
had been such a desire, had now by treaty been realized.. 
He complained of having been betrayed before; but he told. 
Power that if he was made governor of Natchez, he would 
there have opportunities to comply with the baron's political 
desires. He held secret meetings with Power; while, because 
of the suspicions that he was conscious were resting on him for 
his Spanish dealings,! he publicly sent Power away under 
guard, and, apparently, in disgrace.| Power, on his return to 
New Orleans, gave a discouraging account of the disposition of 
the great body of the western people in the matter of separa- 
tion. 

In November, 1798, Mr. Ellicott, the commissioner, states 
that by a very extraordinary accident a letter from the gov-^ 
lernor-general, on its way to a confidential officer in the Spanish 

*Clark, p. 84. 

+Clark, p. 89 ; Wilkinson Mem., II, Note 48. 

JCIark, Notes, p. 97. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 2/ 

service, fell into his hands. The letter contained the most un- 
equivocal proof of the late existence of a plan to injure the 
United States, in which a number of citizens were engaged, 
and a correspondence between Spanish officials, and one whom 
he indicates as General Wilkinson. He says that dispatches 
and twenty thousand dollars in silver were sent up from New 
Orleans ; and although the |boat was searched, these articles 
were overlooked. These facts he communicated in cypher to 
the State Department.* 

On the twenty-ninth of March, 1799, the Spaniards having 
lost all hope of causing a dismemberment of the Union, evacu- 
ated the forts at Natchez, and the United States troops on the 
next day entered into occupation. Thus ended the long cher- 
ished dreams of Spain to build up a strong nation at the gate- 
way of the Mississippi. So long ago as 1783, the Count de 
Aranda, the Spanish minister, declared to his king his belief 
that both France and Spain had acted in opposition to their own 
interests in espousing the cause of the colonies. "This Fed- 
eral Republic, ". he said, "is now a pigmy. The day will come 
when she will be a giant. She will forget the services she has 
received from the powers which have helped her, and will think 
only of her own aggrandizement.". By the strange irony of 
fortune, all that Spain received for the alliance of 1778 was the 
Floridas, by which she hoped to retain the commercial control 
of the Gulf of Mexico, which for years had been slipping 
away ; but in this she was disappointed. All that she had was 
eight years' possession of Florida and Louisiana, and the re- 
visionary right of the latter from France. By recognizing the 
political existence of a great, independent nation in the new 
world, Spain condemned herself to lose, sooner or later, the 
magniiicent transatlantic domain, the sovereignty of which had 
been transmitted by the princes of Austria to the Bourbons, f 

The treaty with Spain in 1795, gave to the citizens of the 
United States the right to deposit produce in New Orleans, for 

* Blennerhasset Pap. p. 429. Ellicott's Journal, p. 183. 
-)-B- C. Winthrop, ' France and United States,' p. 38. . 



28 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

export trade, for the period of three years, which time might 
be extended, or some other point on the island designated for 
the purpose. The attitude of Spain to this country in 1799 
was not pacific. Her privateers preyed upon our commerce, 
and in July the Intendant Morales issued an order prohibiting 
the use of New Orleans as a place of deposit by the western 
people, without designating any other point.* Naturally, when 
this order became known, it excited the most intense indigna- 
tion. The west had become too strong and resolute to endure 
this closing up of her great artery of trade. 

An immediate campaign was set on foot against Louisiana. 
President Adams called for the raising of twelve new regi- 
ments. Three regiments were ordered to assume a position 
near the mouth of the Ohio, and to keep their boats in readi- 
ness to go down the river. General Washington accepted the 
chief commandf of the armies raised in the east and West. He, 
however, died that fall, and the retirement of Mr. Adams from 
the Presidency, and the entire change in Federal politics, caused 
a suspension of hostilities, and a disbanding of the regiments in 
the summer of i8oo.| 

In the meantime Napoleon, ^[ whose power was at its zenith 
in Europe, had set on foot inquiries which gave him the most 
minute information about Louisiana, and he had determined as 
a part of the vast system which he had planned with which to 
aggrandize France, to acquire this then Spanish province. A 
remarkable memoir, § prepared for him by Mr. Pontalba, who 
had long resided in the colony, and had held official position 
under Spain, states, with extraordinary comprehensiveness and 
eloquence, the present and prospective importance of the coun- 
try about the mouth of the Mississippi. He says that Louisi- 
ana is the key of America, and, therefore, of the highest im- 
portance, and has been for a long time past the object of the 

*Barb6 Marbois, p. 233. Gayarrfe, S. Dom., p. 399. 
tSparks' Washington, XI, p. 395. 
JGayarre, S. D., p. 409. 
IT Barbe Marbois, p. 184. 
2 Gayarrfe, S. D., p. 410. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 29 

ambition of the United States. He argued that an appropria- 
tion of three milHons of francs, to be placed in the western 
country, would procure the immigration of thirty thousand 
persons to the better lands near the mouth of the Mississippi, 
and that the immigrants from Kentucky and the neighboring 
districts would sell their lands and come down into Louisiana, 
"where they could have land for nothing, and better facilities 
for trade. He also showed that France would in this hold the 
key of Mexico, and be able to control its commerce. He 
thought such a power, affording the best market for all this 
grown in the Mississippi valley, would present a powerful mo- 
tive to induce the inhabitants of the western districts to sepa- 
rate from the United States, in order to form an alliance with 
France, with the obligation that they should defend Louisiana 
in case of an attack from the United States. He spoke of 
the powerful influence which General Wilkinson — although he 
did not call him by name, as not desiring to expose him — had 
extended on behalf of Spanish interests for a series of years, 
and expressed no doubt but that such interest could still be 
secured. 

Pontalba presented his memoir on the fifteenth of September, 
1800, and on the first of October a treaty was concluded at St. 
Ildefonso,* an article of which was that the king of Spain en- 
gaged to retrocede to the French Republic within six months 
after the execution of the treaty with the Duke of Parma, the 
province of Louisiana, with the same limits that it had then 
in the hands of Spain, that it had when France possessed it, and 
for such enlarged territory as had been acquired from the treat- 
ies which had subsequently been made between Spain and 
other states. The stipulation with the Duke of Parma was 
that Napoleon was to put the duke, who was a member of the 
Spanish house of Bourbons, in possession of Tuscany, and 
erect it into a kingdom. For this boon Spain was to cede 
Louisiana to France. The vast territory, therefore, included 
under the name of Louisiana was bartered off for a petty Ital- 

* ' Barbe Marbois,' p. 184. 



30 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

ian principality. As France was at war with Great Britain, and 
this power was master of the sea, and could easily attack and 
conquer Louisiana, if known to be a French dependency, all 
knowledge of the treaty between France and Spain was care- 
fully concealed, and Spanish officials remained in power. 

The cession of Louisiana to France was a blow^ to the United 
■States,* as it placed at the gateway of the Mississippi a strong 
and aggressive power, instead of a weak one, such as Spain 
was. It was also a menace to Great Britain, because, if France 
extended her influence up the Mississippi river towards the 
British possessions in Canada, it virtually destroyed the results 
of the Seven Years' war and the treaty of 1763. Intimations of 
the ratification of the treaty of cession gradually came to the 
ears of our ministers abroad; and they set on foot remon- 
strances against it. Before publicity was had, however, peace 
was concluded, on the first of October, 1801, between Great 
Britain and France ; and, concealment being no longer neces- 
sary, the latter power immediately prepared to send twenty- 
five thousand troops to Louisiana. 

Delay in dispatching the force, however, resulted from a dif- 
ference between Spain and France as to the meaning of the 
treaty ; whether the cession included Florida or not. In the 
meantime the Mississippi, which had been opened for deposits 
at New Orleans in 1801, was on the sixteenth of October, in the 
next year, closed again, in accordance with the policy of the 
Spaniards to discourage the settlement of Americans in Louis- 
iana. This produced great excitement throughout the country, 
as it also came near causing a famine in New Orleans by stop- 
ping the supplies of flour and other western produce. Strong 
remonstrances were made to the general government against 
the injury caused to the west by these repeated interruptions 
of her commerce. Barbe Marbois, in his history, gives a speci- 
men of some of the language used by the western people, f 
"The Mississippi," said they, "is ours by nature. Its mouth 

* Baiiduy des Lozieres, Sec. Voy., p. 195. 
f P. 235. Gayarre, S. D., p. 456. 



,THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 3 1 

'is the only issue which nature has given to our waters, and we 
wish to use it for our vessels. No power shall deprive us of 
this right. If our most perfect liberty in this matter is dis- 
puted, nothing shall prevent us from taking possession of the 
'Capital, and when we are once masters of it, we shall know 
how to maintain ourselves there. If Congress refuses us effect- 
ual protection, we will adopt the measures which our safety 
requires, even if they endanger the peace of the Union, and 
our connection with the other states. No protection, no alle- 
giance." 

Mr. Livingston, the American minister in Paris, sent over 
specially by Mr. Jefferson to settle this business, discovered 
that the projected establishment in Louisiana was disapproved 
of by every statesman in France* as certain to cause a great 
waste in men and money, excite enmities and produce no pos- 
sible advantage to the nation. Mr. Livingston pressed upon 
the French government the expediency of their selling the 
country to the United States. The United States, he said, did 
not desire the territory west of the Mississippi river, and by 
ceding the district on the eastern side, the respective nations 
would have the river as a safe boundary, and the claims of 
American citizens also against France for spoliations could be 
satisfied. Mr. Madison, the Secretary of State, in representing 
to Mr. Livingston the sensibility of the western people on this 
subject, and the reasonableness of this sensibility, said: "The 
Mississippi to them is everything. It is the Hudson, the Dela- 
ware, the Potomac and all the navigable streams of the Atlantic 
:states formed into one stream, "f 

The denial of the right to deposit was taken up in Congress, 
^hen it was seen that efforts at negotiation for redress wex-e 
fruitless, and resolutions were passed in the House to raise 
eighty thousand troops to vindicate the natural right of the 
western country to the free navigation of the Mississippi. | 

*Amer. State Pap., II, p. 513. 
■]- Gayarre, S. D., p. 473. 
J Gayarre, S. D., p. 492. 



32 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

While these negotiations were going on, war was on the point 
of breaking out again between Great Britain and France, and 
the prospect of this forced the question of the ownership of 
the territory to its issue. For if France still held possession 
after war was declared, Great Britain, which had a fleet in the 
Gulf of Mexico, would seize Louisiana, and France would lose 
it and get nothing. On the eleventh, of April, 1803, Talley- 
rand asked* the American minister whether he wished to have 
the whole of Louisiana. Mr. Livingston, in his reply, showed 
what to us now seems a singular lack of perception in his esti- 
mate of the relative value of the parts in question. Louisiana 
included then the whole country west of the Mississippi, as far 
as Mexico and the Pacific, and north as far as- the British lines ; 
and also, as the United States then supposed, east and west 
Florida. It afterwards appeared that east Florida had not been 
ceded to France by Spain, f and therefore could not be sold. 
When Talleyrand then asked Livingston whether the United 
States desired to have the whole of the country, Livingston 
replied that they did not, that they wished only for New 
Orleans and the Floridas. Talleyrand replied that if France 
gave New Orleans, the rest would be of little value to her, and 
he wished an offer from the United States for the whole of it. 

The interest was intense on both sides of the ocean. Napo- 
leon had set his heart on this plan for the extension of France; 
a force was ready to start under Bernadotte to occupy the coun- 
try ; war was instantly impending between France and Great 
Britain ; the ministers of the United States and France were 
having daily conferences. Our country was still poor, and could 
not afford to pay large purchase money. The difference between 
what was first offered, twenty millions, and what France de- 
manded, one hundred millions of francs, made the prospect of 
agreement remote. To make a result more feasible, and yet 
with a strange insensibility to the future importance of the 
region in question, Mr. Livingston even suggested to Mr. Mad- 

* Barbe Marbois, p. 305. 
"t* Barbe Mar., p. 313. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 33 

ison that, if only New Orleans and the Floridas could be kept, 
the purchase money to be paid might be raised by the sale of 
the territory west of the Mississippi river, with the right of 
sovereignty, to some power in Europe, whose vicinity we should 
not fear.* 

At length, on the tenth of April, 1803, Napoleon expressed 
his purpose to sell, and on the thirtieth the treaty was signed by 
which the whole of Louisiana, including west Florida, all that 
had been acquired by France from Spain, f was transferred to 
the United States, on the condition of the payment of sixty 
millions of francs, exclusive of the amounts due by France to 
American citizens on account of spoliations, which account the 
United States assumed. |When Napoleon was informed of the 
signing of the treaty, he prophetically said: " This accession of 
territory strengthens forever the power of the United States, 
and I have given to England a maritime rival that will sooner 
or later humble her pride. |1" 

The first point gained in the effort to secure the reluctant 
consent of Napoleon to the sale of Louisiana, was the abso- 
lute pledge which Mr. Livingston extorted, that the claims of 
our merchants by reason of the spoliations by French priva- 
teers should be paid. This compelled § that something should 
be done. In the treaty with France in 1778, however, the 
United States had pledged themselves to France, as one of the 
conditions of the alliance, to guarantee forever all the posses- 
sions in America which France had or should have.^i This 
was a vast and perpetual obligation, which the United States 

* Gayarre S. D., p. 509. 

+ Amer. State P. I. p. 507 

Jit is a curious fact, brought out recently by M. Leon Say, that there is no trace 
whatever in the French archives of the receipt of the fifteen millions of dollars paid by 
the United States for the purchase of Louisiana. Napoleon probably appropriated it to 
his own use. It has been surmised that he treated with the American commissioners 
directly through Marbois, rather than through his minister, Talleyrand, because of his 
fears of the latter's well known rapacity. — ' Adams' Neutrality in America.' p. 35. 

II Barbd Mar., p. 314. 

§ Oneida Historical Coll., 1881, p. 166. 

^Treaties U. S. p. 243. 



34 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

had not seen the full effect of. This would have to be abrogated. 
France would only consent to it, however, on the assump- 
tion by the United States of the payment of the debts which 
France owed to our marine for spoliations. Thus the little word 
"forever," in the treaty,''^ was only redeemed twenty-three 
years after at the price of ten millions of dollars, which the 
United States pledged itself to pay, and not one cent of which 
French claims has up to this time been paid to our citizens. 

This whole business had to be concluded in Paris, with no 
special communications from this country, the United States 
ministers, Livingston, and Monroe who had been specially sent, 
taking the responsibility. The vote in the Senate to ratify the 
treaty was twenty-six to six, these last all being from New 
England. In the debate f objections were made to the treaty, 
and strong fears were expressed of the stability of the govern- 
ment with its citizens removed two or three thousand miles 
from the capital, where they could scarcely feel the rays of the 
general government. Senator White of Tennessee declared 
that he would rather see the territory to the west of the Missis- 
sippi given to France, to Spain, or to any other nation, upon 
the mere condition that no citizen of the United States should 
ever settle within its limits, than to have it sold for one hundred 
millions of dollars, and we retain the sovereignty. 

So soon as Spain heard of the sale to the United States,'! she 
vigorously protested, because France had covenanted with her 
never to part with the country, and she declared that she ought 
to have had the first chance for purchase. For a time it was 
thought that Spain would not make a peaceful surrender. The 
French had sent Laussat to Louisiana as a commissioner to re- 
ceive the district from Spain, before the cession was made to 
the United States. On the thirtieth of November, 1803, Spain 
surrendered Louisiana to France. On the twentieth of Decem- 

*C. F. Adams. Add. N. Y. Hist. Soc, 1870, p. 38. 

tGayarr(^ S. D. p. 561. 

JBarb6 Mar., p. 345. Gayarr^, S. D., p. 535. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 35 

ber, twenty days after, the tricolored standard of France gave 
place to the American flag.* 

A recognition of the immense issues which were at stake in 
the possession of the mouth of the Mississippi river will be had 
in this rapid statement of the varied means used to maintain 
the control of it, and the reluctance shown in parting with it. 
The west was constantly becoming a larger factor in the nation; 
and, in the manifestation of its discontent at the monopolizing 
by the east of all the great offices, it succeeded in causing the 
nation to purchase, for an amount which was then quite exhaust- 
ing, the outlet of its great river, and the country beyond, the 
wealth of which was only afterwards apprehended. Still New 
Orleans was, at the time of the purchase, virtually a foreign 
city, with only a comparatively small American colony in it. 
Many of the Spanish officers remained as residents, ready to 
sympathize with any movement hostile to the United States, 
and they had ultimately to be requested by the governor to 
remove. The purchase of the territory put a stop, however, 
for some time, to the efforts of conspirators. 

The source from which sprang the motive for the next at- 
tempt at the separating of the west from the Union was the 
disappointed ambition of one of the most astute and daring 
men in American political life. That which furnished oppor- 
tunity and hope to Burr, or any other adventurer, was the 
vast stakes that would fall into the hands of the boldest schemer, 
in the largely unsettled but fertile regions of the west, the 
remains of prejudice yet existing against the older and more 
calculating communities in the east, and the lack of entire na- 
tional and social homogeneity arising from distance and imper- 
fect communication. All this caused the eyes of disappointed 
ambition to turn for more hopeful fields of exercise to the 
new and more excitable communities in the west. 

In the general election of 1801, Mr. Jefferson and Colonel 
Burr were found to have received the same number of electoral 
votes for President and Vice-President. -j- No one receiving a 

* Martin, p. 295. Barbe Mar., p. 352. -|- Davis, Burr, I, 435. 



36 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

majority of votes, the decision went to the House of Representa- 
tives. It was evident that the Republicans had intended their 
votes for Mr. Jefferson for President and Colonel Burr for Vice- 
President. When, however, the Federalists despaired of elect- 
ing their candidate, Mr. Adams, they, in considerable numbers 
together with some Republicans, turned to Colonel Burr, and 
voted for him for President against Jefferson, and this with 
Burr's connivance. The contest was prolonged until within a 
few days of the time of the inauguration, when Mr. Jefferson 
was elected President and Colonel Burr Vice-President. His 
alleged complottings with the Federalists in this contest to 
seize the presidency were the occasion of the political feuds-f- 
in New York which resulted in the duel with Alexander Hamil- 
ton July II, 1804. After Mr. Hamilton's death, Colonel Burr 
had to flee before the intense popular indignation, and was for 
a number of months in obscurity in the south. He returned 
to Washington in the winter of 1804-5, ^^^ took his place as 
the president of the senate. He was, however, himself aware 
that from the odium in which he was held his political fortunes 
were at an end. His term as Vice-President closed March 3, 
1805, but he left Washington for Philadelphia before the close 
of the session, after making a speech of farewell which moved 
his bitterest opponents to tears. 

General Wilkinson was in Washington at the time, having 
just been appointed governor of Louisiana,;]: with residence in 
St. Louis. He was an old friend of Burr. They had fought 
before Quebec together in 1775. He showed great interest in 
the fortunes of his former comrade. Wilkinson commended 
him to the delegates from Louisiana in Washington, and told 
them that so soon as Burr's vice-presidency was at an end he 
would go to Louisiana, where he had certain projects; adding 
that he was a man who would succeed in anything that he 
Avould undertake, and, throwing out mysterious hints, asked 
them to give him all the information in their power respecting 
that country. 

f Hammond's Polit. Hist. N. Y., I., p. 131. JBlennerhassett Pap., p. 432. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION, 3/ 

He also expressed to Matthew Lyon, the eccentric member 
from Kentucky, originally from Vermont, and who subsequently 
came out to Missouri, his sorrow that a person of Burr's bril- 
liant abilities was about to be _ lost to public life, and wondered 
what he could do. Wilkinson urged* that a foreign mission be 
secured for him; but Lyon assured him that this would be 
impossible. Lyon, however, suggested that he might, if he 
took the right steps at once, be returned to Congress from 
Tennessee. To do this, however, he must instantly set out 
that spring, make a residence, and begin the practice of law in 
Nashville, and during the summer let his friends indicate that he 
would stand for Congress; and Mr. Lyon thought his abilities 
would, in the fall, secure him the position, and his killing of 
Hamilton would be found to have done him no injury. Burr 
took the matter up leisurely, allowed himself to loiter over a 
project for the cutting of a canal at the Falls of the Ohio, 
started for the west, went down the river, stopped at Blenner- 
hassett's island, not however meeting the owner, as he was not 
at home, and so went on to Louisville. From thence he set 
out overland for Nashville, stopping on the way at Lexington, 
which was the centre of a brilliant social life and of political 
influence in Kentucky. 

Mr. Lyon assured him at the time that, on account of his 
delays, his chance for being elected to Congress from Tennes- 
see was destroyed, and stated afterward on Burr's trial that there 
seemed much mystery in his conduct, and he suspected projects 
which he could not penetrate. Burr's arrival and stay in Nashville 
were the occasion of an ovation. He then came down the Cum- 
berland river to Fort Massac, sixteen miles below its mouth on 
the Ohio. Here in June he met Wilkinson, who had come 
down from St. Louis expressly for the purpose of having this 
meeting with Burr, with whom he had had for several years a 
cipher correspondence. Wilkinson furnished him with an ele- 
gant barge, with sails and crew, and gave him a letter of intro- 
duction to Daniel Clark, a wealthy merchant of New Orleans, 

*Wilk. Mem., II., p. 273. 



38 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

and Burr went down the river.* In his note Wilkinson com- 
mended Burr as a persecuted man, who had a claim on his ser- 
vices, about whose business there were many things of which 
he could not write, and for which he referred him to Burr in 
person. In New Orleans Burr, on account of the eminent posi- 
tion he had held in the previous administration, was highly- 
honored, dined with Governor Claiborne and other distinguished 
persons, and was shown many other attentions. 

It is to be noted, in view of subsequent events, that Mr. 
Clark, to whom Mr. Burr had been specially commended, within 
two months of Burr's visit set out on a journey to Mexico, with 
regard to the objects and results of which journey he wrote after 
his return to Wilkinson: "I have been to the land of promise, 
and have got safe from it, after having been represented as a 
person desirous of acquiring information about its strength, 
and where and how it may be assailed with the greatest prob- 
ability of success. At a future period I shall communicate to 
you all I have picked up there, "f 

Wilkinson declared^ that his purpose of commending Burr to 
Clark was that, since the expectation of election in Tennessee 
was at an end, he now desired to promote Burr's election to 
Congress from Orleans, or his appointment as governor in place 
of Claiborne. In his memoirs he complained that while he 
was thus ingenuously promoting Colonel Burr's political aspira- 
tions. Burr had already, while keeping him in ignorance, made 
Clark his confederate in the scheme for invading Mexico, and 
had persuaded Clark that himself and the army were ready to 
unite in an expedition against that country. A letter written 
from New Orleans during Burr's visit asserts that the common 
rumor there was that a combination was forming, the object of 
which was to take Louisiana out of the Union. 

After a stay of some weeks in New Orleans, Burr went to 
Natchez, and from thence to Nashville, Lexington, Louisville, 
and from thence in September, 1805, to St. Louis, where he 
made a visit to Wilkinson, and also went with him to St. 

*Clark, p. 119. fWilkinson, Mem. II. App. 73. ^Wilkinson, II., p. 285. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 39 

Charles. Before this, Major Seth Hunt stated that Wilkinson, 
on the twenty -eighth of June,* at Kaskaskia, in returning from 
his meeting with Burr at Fort Massac, declared to him that 
"he was engaged in a scheme full of danger, requiring enter- 
prise; but, if successful, full of fortune and glory." -|- In the 
same year Wilkinson wrote to Colonel McKee, inquiring whether 
he could not raise a corps of cavalry "to follow his fortunes 
to Mexico." 

At this time also, in June, and after his interview with Burr 
at Massac, Wilkinson assured General Adair, senator from Ten- 
nessee, that Burr reckoned on him in his project, and in a letter, 
marked "private," asks Adair to meet him, and he will tell him 
all, and that "they must have a peep at the unknown world be- 
yond him. "J Of the meaning of this allusion perhaps a hint 
may be had in the question contained in Adair's reply,§ " Pray, 
how far is it, and what kind of a way, from St. Louis to Santa 
Fe, and from thence to Mexico?" While Wilkinson protests 
that he knows nothing as yet of any confederacy, he declares 
his assurance that at this time Adair was connected with Burr's 
^'sinister project." 

As the result of his conversations during Burr's stay in St. 
Louis in September, 1805, Wilkinson states that he was per- 
suaded that Burr had a scheme in hand, but that he did not 
know of its treasonable character, and that his confidence in 
Burr was shaken. In Burr's trial, subsequently, Wilkinson de- 
clared that in an interview in St. Louis, Burr stated that he had 
^'a great project in contemplation, but whether it was author- 
ized by the government or not Burr did not explain, nor did 
he inquire." The extreme unlikelihood of this statement is 
apparent. General Wilkinson and Colonel Burr had for years 
been corresponding intimately in cipher. Wilkinson was the 
commander-in-chief of the army, and would be in a position 
to know what projects were on foot by the government. He 
knew, moreover, that Burr was in utter antagonism to the 
President. 

^Wilkinson H, p. 292-3. fClark, 121. ^^Clark I., 120. ^Wilkinson II., App. 77^ 



40 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION, 



In September Burr left St. Louis for the east, and on the 
twenty-third was at Vincennes, where was General Harrison, 
the governor of the Northwestern territory, to whom Wilkin- 
son had written a letter strongly commending Burr. Colonel 
Burr wrote back from there to Wilkinson, apparently about 




AARON BURR. 

the project which they had in common : "I have had no conver- 
sation on the subject you mentioned, but we have gone round 
about it, and there is every evidence of good will, in which I 
have entire belief. There is probably some secret embarrass- 
ment, of which you and I are ignorant."* 

*Wilkinson, II, App. 82. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 4I 

Burr went on to Philadelphia and Washington, between 
which places he remained until August, 1806. He had been 
indicted, in 1805, by the grand jury in New York for murder, 
in the matter of Hamilton, and this had been stated by Gen- 
eral Adair as the cause of his going west. He had influential 
political adherents in New York and New Jersey, among whom 
were General Dayton, and the son of Matthew Ogden, of 
New Jersey, Samuel Swarwout and Marinus Willet, of New 
York. Among them he raised an amount of money for the 
purchase of a large tract of land on the Washita, a branch of 
the Red river, in the Louisiana country, the colonization of 
which was one of the alternative projects which he placed be- 
fore his friends. Baron Bastrop had secured from Spain a 
concession of one million two hundred thousand acres of land. 
Mr. Lynch had bought from the baron six-tenths of this tract, 
the time for the completion of which purchase was drawing 
to its close. Colonel Burr, in July, 1806, contracted to pur- 
chase from Mr. Lynch the land, and was to pay fifty thousand 
dollars, and did pay down five thousand. Burr, for this pur- 
pose, raised among his friends forty thousand dollars, and more 
was forthcoming. 

In the meantime he was writing frequently in cipher to Wil- 
kinson, and Wilkinson replied. In April, 1806, he wrote to 
Wilkinson: "The execution of our project is postponed. 
Want of water in the Ohio rendered the movement impractica- 
ble. The association is enlarged, and comprises all that Wilkin- 
son desires. Confidence limited to a few. Although this delay 
is irksome, it will enable us to move with more certainty and 
dignity. Burr will be throughout United States this summer."* 

General Eaton, who had recently returned from operations 
against the pirates of Tripoli, and was supposed to have griev- 
ances against the government, because of its failure to reim- 
burse him for advances made there, and who therefore might be 
supposed to be ready to entertain propositions adverse to the 
government, testified-f- in the trial of Burr that during the winter 

* Wilkinson, II., App. 83. fBurr's trial, I., p. 536. Life of Eaton, p. 391, 



42 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

of 1805-6, Burr informed him that he was forming a military 
expedition against the Spanish provinces to the southwest of 
the United States, and also had a project of revolutionizing the 
territory west of the Alleghany mountains, and establishing an 
independent empire there ; New Orleans to be the capital, and 
himself the chief; gathering a military force on the waters of 
the Mississippi, and carrying conquest to Mexico. He said 
that he had in person made a tour through the western country 
during the previous season ; that he had secured to his interests 
and attached to his person the most distinguished citizens of 
Tennessee, Kentucky, and the territory of Orleans; that he had 
inexhaustible resources and funds; that the army of the United 
States would act with him and be reinforced by ten or twelve 
thousand men from the above mentioned states and territories. 
He said that General Wilkinson would be the commander, 
and Burr offered Eaton the second place. He said that Wil- 
kinson was doubtful about his retention of his present position 
and desired to secure a permanency with him, and would also 
use his influence with the army on the promise to it of double 
pay and rations, the ambition of the officers, and the prospect 
of plunder and military achievements. In addition to the posi- 
tive assurances which Burr said he had of assistance and coopera- 
tion, he said that the vast extent of territory of the United 
States west of the Alleghany mountains would, with its offer 
to adventurers of the mines of Mexico, bring to his standard 
volunteers from all quarters of the Union. The line of separa- 
tion of the Union was to be drawn by the Alleghanies. He 
was persuaded that he had secured the most considerable citi- 
zens of Kentucky and Tennessee, but expressed some doubts 
about Ohio, as he thought they were too much of a plodding, 
industrial people to engage in the enterprise. 

Burr had three plans in mind,* and was incessantly moving 
about, putting forward one or the other projects, as he found 
persons more favorable to one or the other. 

First. To organize the restlessness and discontent of the 

*Amer. State Pap. Miscel. I., p. 468. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 43 

frontier states and territories, and to separate the southwest from 
the Union, and set up an independent government, with its 
capital in New Orleans. 

Second. In conjunction with the first, to enlist recruits and 
make arrangements for an expedition against Mexico and the 
Spanish provinces, especially in the event of a war between 
Great Britain and Spain, which at that time seemed inevitable. 

Third. In the event of the failure of both these projects, 
and as a means to commit to him and his measures irrevocably 
those who would revolt at such revolutionary plans as the fore- 
going, the purchase and colonization of the tract of land on the 
Washita river. 

In deciding upon his course he was driven on by desperation 
and disappointed ambition. He gave too much credit to the 
declarations of a few partisan leaders who, in the desire to serve 
their own ends, overstated the restlessness of the western 
people. He made no proper estimate of the simple, law-abiding, 
republican habits of the great body of the inhabitants of the 
country. He deceived himself as to the conditional, really 
timid pledges of adherence on the part of a few men, which 
actually were wholly falsified in the event. And yet the bril- 
liant audacity and versatility of Burr, in spite of his being almost 
alone in his planning, and of the popular odium and social isola- 
tion in which he was held, inspired and kept life in his scheme in 
spite of its desperation. As Wirt said afterward : "Pervading the 
continent from New York to New Orleans, he draws into his 
plan, by every allurement which he can contrive, men of all 
ranks and descriptions. To youthful ardor he presents danger 
and glory; to ambition, rank and titles and honors; to avarice, 
the mines of Mexico. To each person whom he addresses he 
presents the object adapted to his taste."* 

On the fifteenth of April, 1806, Mr. Jefferson says f that, 
about a month before that time, Burr called on him and, re- 
minding him that Jefferson had, some five years before, inti- 
mated his purpose to give him a high position if he had not 

*Burr's Trial, II., p. 118. t Jefferson's Works, ix, 208. 



44- THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

been elected as Vice-President, told him that he was now dis- 
engaged, had supported his administration, could do him, if he 
chose, great harm, and was willing to receive from him a prop- 
osition. Jefferson says that he replied to him that he was 
sensible of his talents, but that he must be aware the public 
had withdrawn their confidence from him ; and that as to any 
harm Burr could inflict, he feared no injury which Burr could 
do him. 

In May, 1806, General Wilkinson was ordered, because of 
the threatening character of the relations with Spain, to send 
all his available force from St. Louis to Fort Adams, now 
Vicksburg. He did so, and then ordered them up the Red 
river to guard the western frontier of the United States * along 
the river Sabine. The order from the war department under 
which he acted simply contemplated the placing of his forces 
at Fort Adams, guarding New Orleans, and then from there 
maintaining observations eastward in Florida and westward on 
the Sabine river, f The transportation of all his troops to the 
remote point up the Red river was faulted at the time as placing 
his force out of reach in case of any attack on New Orleans by 
an expedition under Burr coming down the Mississippi river. 
Wilkinson stated before the grand jury afterward in Washington 
that, between the time of his meeting Burr at Massac and this 
time, he had received six notes from him in cipher, which he 
did not desire to have exposed except in the last extremity, t 
and that they were calculated to inculpate him should they be 
exposed. Wilkinson left St. Louis to join the troops down the 
Mississippi on the twenty-fifth of August, and reached Natchi" 
toches, on the Red river, on the twenty-second of September. 

Burr arrived at Blennerhassett's Island, § on the Ohio river, 
on his way west, in September, 1806. Blennerhassett was an 
Irish gentleman, a barrister of literary and philosophical tastes, 
who had spent too much of his not large fortune in the pur- 
chase, eight years before, and adornment of an island on the 

* Wilkinson 11, App. 87 and 90. 1*Jeff. Works, V, p. 25. 

JClark, p. 117. § Blennerhassett Pap., p. 126. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 



45 



Ohio, fourteen miles below Marietta. He now found himself 
wanting in ready means, and willing to embark in the southern 
venture, to which Burr had in general terms invited him, un- 
conscious of all that it involved. A young family was growing 
up, in order to provide for whorh he was ready to embark on 
the vague project in the Louisiana country which Burr, with his 




HERMAN BLENNERHASSETT. 



singular power of fascination, held up before him. They had 
corresponded, but had not personally met until this time, Blen- 
nerhassett having been absent when Burr stopped at the island 
in May of the previous year. 

Burr imparted to his host, with some reserve, that the senti- 
ments of the larger part of the inhabitants of the Orleans and 



46 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

Mississippi territories were disaffected to the government to 
such an extent that, unless early measures were taken to pre- 
vent it, they would fling themselves into the arms of any foreign 
power which should pledge itself to protect them. He declared 
that, in such an event, the western states would be placed in 
a dilemma, out of which they could only escape by an eastern 
or western ascendancy of interests; they would no longer con- 
sent to an alliance, but would sever themselves from the Union. 
He said that the separation of the western from the Atlantic 
states was no new project, that it was a matter of daily dis- 
cussion at Washington, and that so thoroughly disgusted were 
the people of New Orleans with the conduct of the administra- 
tion — both with reference to themselves and to Spanish and 
American affairs — that he expected to hear of the beginning of 
a revolt in their seizing on the bank and custom house, and 
appropriating to themselves the revenues and forces of the ter- 
ritory. He declared that he had been invited, when he was 
in New Orleans, to become the leader of a society of young 
men there, who had taken possession of a number of cannon 
belonging to the French, for a Mexican invasion. 

Blennerhassett was easily drawn into the project which Burr 
had in hand. In the month of September active preparations 
were begun for the contemplated expedition. Contracts were 
given out for the construction of fifteen large batteaux, suffi- 
cient to convey five hundred men, and a large keel boat for the 
transportation of provisions and arms, for the most of which 
Blennerhassett becanxe responsible. While this work was going 
on. Burr visited Marietta, where his elegant manners, ready 
address and former political eminence made him very popular. 
He was asked to drill some troops. He visited Chillicothe, 
the seat of government in Ohio, and so passed on to Cincin- 
nati, and then continued his journey to Lexington, Kentucky. 
He gave out that his expedition had the approval of the govern- 
ment. His object was to extend his acquaintance and enlist 
recruits. To these he promised pay, and land on the Washita. 

He induced Blennerhassett to write for the Ohio GazettCy 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 4/ 

published at Marietta, a series of essays, the design of which 
was to show the permanent antagonism between the commer- 
cial interests of the eastern and western states ; that the land 
laws were invidious and unjust to western settlers ; that the 
western people had paid the government more than four hun_ 
dred thousand dollars a year, and had received nothing in return 
for it. On such considerations he based, the conclusion that 
a separation of the eastern and western states was necessary, 
and that the western people should positively assert themselves 
It is interesting to notice that, at this time, before the introduc. 
tion of steam navigation, the writer remarks: "It will forever 
remain impracticable for our shipping to perform a return voyage 
against the currents of our long rivers." It was frequently 
found best then, in groins from New Orleans to Cincinnati, in- 
stead of going up the river, to go around by sea to Baltimore, 
and then travel overland to the Ohio. 

Burr, accompanied by his daughter, Theodosia, and her hus- 
band, Mr. Alston, with Blennerhassett, went in October to Lex- 
ington, which was designated as the point of rendezvous. The 
town was then a central point in the west, and society was the 
most polite and intelligent in the Mississippi valley. The oldest 
and best families in the south were represented there. The 
manner of the reception of Burr and his associates in Lexing- 
ton, the respect shown, the generous hospitality extended, 
flattered him with the hope of the popularity of the movement, 
a thorough organization of which was immediately begun.* 
Burr received from friends in Lexington not less than forty 
thousand dollars for the furtherance of his projects. In order 
to quiet alarm, the iiripression was given out that the object of 
the enterprise was simply the colonization of the Bastrop lands. 
Burr had brought with him a portion of the money raised in the 
east. His son-in-law, Mr. Alston, had large property in South 
Carolina, but had no ready money; and so Blennerhassett had 
to join his personal credit with the security promised him on 
Alston's estate, in order to procure the means required. 

* Blennerhassett Pap. , p. 467. 



48 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

In the meantime the preparations making- had not escaped the 
attention of the government at Washington.* Mr. Madison, the 
secretary of state, directed Mr. John Graham, secretary of the 
Orleans territory, to ascertain and report the facts. He learned 
in Lexington that Mr. Burr reported that he had a credit of two 
hundred thousand dollars with Daniel Clark of New Orleans. 
He also warned the governor of Ohio of the treasonable de- 
signs of Burr and Blennerhassett within the borders of the state. 
Burr, leaving directions for the completion of the preparations, 
and for Blennerhassett to join him with his force at the mouth 
of the Cumberland, went down to the Falls of the Ohio. He 
had scarcely landed in Kentucky before Colonel Daviess, the 
district attorney, on the third of November, before the federal 
court, denounced the conspiracy, and moved for a warrant for 
the arrest of Burr for treasonable practice. Judge Innis, who, 
with Judge Sebastian, John Brown and General Wilkinson, had 
been during the summer denounced by the Western World, 
published in Frankfort, as intriguing with Spain, after two days 
overruled the motion, f 

Burr appeared in court and, while declaring that the judge 
had treated the matter as it deserved, said that, as the motion 
might be renewed in his absence, he had challenged the district 
attorney to prove his charge. He retained Mr. Clay, then a young 
man, as one of his counsel. When the day of trial came, the 
attorney found that he could not procure his witnesses, and the 
grand jury returned the indictment "not a true bill," and com- 
pletely exonerated him. The result greatly added to Burr's 
popularity in the state. Mr. Clay said that, before appearing 
for Burr, he called on him for a pledge that he was not unlaw- 
fully engaged, which he gave.| Mr. Clay afterward declared 
that Burr had lied. He met Burr for the first time after this in 
1815, in the United States court room in New York, and Mr. 
Clay then declined to give Burr his hand, because of the de- 
ception which had been practised on him.§ 

* Blennerhassett Pap., p. 154. -f Allen, History Ky. , p. 72. 

J Butler, Kentucky, p. 315. § Prentice, Life of Clay, p. 34. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 



49 



After the culmination of Burr's project, the Kentucky legis- 
lature instituted an inquiry into the allegation against Judge 
Sebastian, that he had been a pensioner of Spain for two thous- 
and dollars a year ; but he, to stifle the inquiry, resigned his 
office, but not before a committee had unanimously reported 
that for years he had been regularly receiving pay from Spain. 

The authorities of Ohio moved vigorously in consequence of 
the information furnished them by Graham. The militia were 
called out, and pressed upon Blennerhassett and his men so 
closely that, while some of the boats were stopped and Blenner- 
hassett arrested, the latter was forcibly released by his fellow 
conspirators, and he and his men in boats left the island and 
started down the Ohio at midnight of the tenth of December. 

In order to lull suspicion and to add to his resources. Burr 
had been compelled in Washington and New Orleans to assume 
a double part. To the Marquis de Yrujo, the Spanish minister, 
he protested that his purpose was to divide the American 
Union. This was a measure highly agreeable to Spain. The 
transfer of Louisiana to the United States was always a hateful 
thing. Many of the Spaniards in Louisiana hoped that the 
separation was not final ;* they thought that they would recover 
the territory after some struggle over the different interpretations 
of the articles of the treaty concerning boundaries. Our com- 
merce on the Mobile and Tombigbee rivers was harassed by 
arbitrary duties and vexatious searches. The boundaries of 
Louisiana on the line of the Sabine were in dispute. The 
Choctaws in the Mississippi territory were incited to war with 
the United States. The former Spanish governor, Casa Calvo, 
and the Intendante stayed on in New Orleans and were the 
centre of cabals. They were told by Governor Claiborne, Janu- 
ary lo, 1806, that they must leave the territory. In conse- 
quence they were greatly offended, f Yrujo therefore entered 
heartily into Burr's plans to divide the Union, and visited and 
advised with him. He offered him the use of ten thousand 
stand of arms, and money to any necessary amount. ;|; 

*Gayarre, S. D., p. 128. fMadison II., 398, :f Gayarre Am. Dom., p. 181, 



50 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

On the other hand, to Merry, the British minister to Wash- 
ington, Burr represented that he was intending to proceed 
against Mexico, and as such a measure would be favorable to 
British interests, and would throw the United States into alli- 
ance with England as opposed to France and Spain, Burr de- 
clared that he had from Merry the pledge that the British fleet 
would come to the mouth of the Mississippi river to help him, 
and that Commodore Truxton had gone to Jamaica to commu- 
nicate, on the part of Burr, with the British commander. Trux- 
ton did not leave Washington, however, in fact, but communi- 
cated to the President regularly all that Burr said to him. 

On the eighth of October General Wilkinson was at Natchi- 
toches. He had written to Burr in cipher on the thirteenth of 
May, asking from him a statement of his designs. On this day 
there came to him Mr. Swartwout, of New Jersey, with a letter 
of introduction to him from Burr, and another letter for Colonel 
Cushing, the second in command, from General Dayton. He 
said that he was on his way to New Orleans, and had ex- 
pected to find the army at Fort Adams on the Mississippi, and 
offered his services as a volunteer. The next morning Wilkin- 
son told Cushing that Swartwout had brought him intelligence 
of an enterprise that was on foot in the western states, inimical 
to the United States, in which a great number of persons, 
possessing wealth, popularity and talents, were engaged ; that 
Colonel Burr was at the head of it ; that he had been offered the 
second command, and that the army was reckoned on to sup- 
port it. Wilkinson bound Cushing to secrecy about the pro- 
ject and his communication. 

The following are the fetters thus received, all in cipher, the 
first from Burr, and dated July 22 :* "I have at length obtained 
funds and have actually commenced. The eastern detachments 
from different points, and under different pretenses, will rendez- 
vous on the Ohio on the first of November. Everything in- 
ternal and external favors our view — naval protection of Eng- 
land is secured. Truxton is going to Jamaica to arrange with 

*Amer. State Pap, Miscel, I., p. 471, Wilkinson II, p. 312. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 5! 

the admiral there, and will meet us at Mississippi. It will be a 
host of choice spirits. Wilkinson shall be second to Burr only, 
and Wilkinson shall dictate the rank and promotion of his offi- 
cers. Burr will proceed westward August i, never to return. 
Send forthwith an influential friend with whom Burr may con- 
fer; this is essential to concert and harmony of movement. 
Send a list of all persons known to Wilkinson, westward of the 
mountains, who could be useful, with a note delineating their 
character. Our project is brought to the point so long desired. 
Burr's plan is to move down rapidly from the falls (of the Ohio) 
on the fifteenth of November with the first five hundred or one 
thousand men in light boats, now constructing for that purpose, 
to be at Natchez between the fifth and fifteenth of December, 
there to meet you ; then to determine whether to seize or pass 
by Baton Rouge. Send an answer; draw on me for all expense." 

The next two letters delivered to Wilkinson were written by 
General Dayton, the close friend of Burr ; the first on the six- 
teenth of July: "Everything appears to have conspired to 
prepare the train for a grand explosion; are you also ready? 
As you are said to have removed your headquarters down the 
river, you can retain your present position without suspicion, 
until your friends join you in December somewhere on the river 
Mississippi. Under the auspices of Burr and Wilkinson I shall 
be happy to engage, and when the time arrives you will find me 
near you." Eight days after this Dayton sought to bind Wil- 
kinson fast to Burr's enterprise by intimating that he was in any 
event about to lose his position in the army. He wrote: "It 
is now well ascertained that you are to be displaced in next 
session. Jefferson will affect to yield reluctantly to the public 
sentiment, but yield he will; prepare yourself for it; you know 
the rest. You are not a man to despair, or even despond, espec- 
ially when such prospects offer in another quarter. Are you 
ready? Wealth and glory. Louisiana and Mexico. Receive 
my nephew affectionately." 

These letters came to Wilkinson on the eighth of October, 
but a little more than a month before the time named bv Burr 



52 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

when he said he would be at the Falls of the Ohio with his force 
coming down the river. Although it would seem as though time 
would be of great value, and that he would hastily return to the 
Mississippi and place Fort Adams and New Orleans in a condi- 
tion for defence, for thirteen days Wilkinson did nothing but 
engage himself with the small force of Spaniards on the Sabine, 
and, as he says, endeavor to draw further facts out of Swart- 
wout about the expedition.* His delay in communicating with 
the President had the more significance since he knew that the 
route of the messenger overland to Washington consumed over 
a month at best. The President wrote on the third of January, 
1807, to Wilkinson, that his letter of November 12, brought 
by a special messenger, only reached him on the day before, 
having taken over fifty days in the transit. f 

General Wilkinson, in his affidavit, No. 81, as reported to 
congress, swore that, having been requested by Swartwout to 
write to Burr, whom he was soon to meet, he declined to do so. 
It was, however, extorted from him afterwards in the examina- 
tion in Richmond that he did write a letter to Burr from 
Natchitoches, that it was sent to Natchez, to which place he 
followed, recovered it and destroyed it.| This is probably the 
point at which, after long uncertainty, he at length determined 
to give up Burr and hold to the government. And even then 
he shaped his course in such a way that, if he discovered that 
Burr's project caught the popular favor and was likely to suc- 
ceed, he might not be found to be committed irrevocably 
against it. 

Only on the twenty-first of October did he send a message 
to the President; and even then he did not send the letters or 
copies of them which he had received ; nor did he in a long 
communication mention the name of Burr as connected with 
the expedition. While the letter from Burr can hardly fail to 
convince one that Wilkinson was previously informed as to the 
conspiracy, Wilkinson, in his letter to the President, seems 
intent upon concealing the complicity of Burr. He declares 

* Wilkinson II., p. 321. f Jefferson's Works, V, p. 26. J Clark, p. 130. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 53 

in his memoirs, that even yet he could hardly bring himself 
to believe that his "long-loved friend," as he calls him, "could 
be engaged in a treasonable enterprise."* 

On the fifth of November he received from Dr. Bollman, of 
New Orleans, a warm friend of Burr, copies of the letters of 
Burr and Dayton, which, for further certainty, had been com. 
manded to be delivered to him. On the same day he received 
a letter from J. D. Donaldson, of Natchez, which informed him 
that a messenger from St. Louis had just made known to him a 
plan, with permission that he might inform the general of it, 
that, Wilkinson said, staggered credulity. It was that there was 
an expedition on foot to revolutionize the western country 
which was matured and ready to explode; that Kentucky, Ohio, 
Tennessee, Orleans and Indiana are combined to declare them- 
selves independent on the fifteenth of November. It was added 
that an accredited agent of the conspiracy had approached 
some of the most influential persons in St. Louis and asked 
them to join, saying that if money was necessary it might be 
commanded to any extent. It was stated that the persons thus 
applied to altogether refused to concur in any such plan, and 
that it would be only superior force that would dispense with 
the oath of allegiance to the United States. The fact of the 
communication of this project in St. Louis was asserted ; but, 
it was added, that there were only four persons in St. Louis 
privy to the disclosure made by the secret agent, f 

It was, Wilkinson says, only on the receipt of this message 
that his mind, not even persuaded by what Swartwout had 
told him, and the letters brought him, was convinced that 
there was a conspiracy, and that Burr was at the head of it. 
It was only on the twelfth of November, more than a month 
after the receipt of the letters from Burr, that Wilkinson wrote 
to the President, sending a copy of the letters which he had 
received from Burr and Dayton. Even then he sent copies 
which were, as he himself afterwards confessed, garbled, with 
important changes made, and with all reference in them to 

* II., p. 323. f Wilkinson, I., App. 88. 



54 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

Burr's previous communications with him taken out. He says 
that this was done in order that he might not be inculpated with 
him. He at different times swore that one and the other forms 
of this important letter were faithful and correct. The fact 
that he was suspected was at all times present to his mind. 
When he revealed to Colonel Gushing the substance of Burr's 
letter, he bade him mark the date, in order that he might, if 
called on, make a statement afterward. Colonel Freeman, the 
commander in New Orleans, testified that Wilkinson put before 
him the rank and wealth which he might have if he would side 
with Burr. Governor Mead,* of Mississippi, wrote to Gov- 
ernor Claiborne, of Louisiana: "If Burr passes this territory 
with two thousand men, I have no doubt but that General 
Wilkinson will be your worst enemy. Be on your guard 
against the wily general. He is not much better than Cataline. 
Consider him as a traitor, and act as if certain thereof "-f- The 
messenger who took Wilkinson's letter of November 12, to 
the President affirmed that the first question which Jefferson 
put to him was: "Is Wilkinson sound in this business?" 

The President, on his receipt of Wilkinson's first letter, as 
well as from information gained in other ways, issued his pro- 
clamation;}: against the conspiracy of Burr on November 27 
1806, in which he warned all persons from engaging in the 
treasonable expedition. 

After Burr had secured his triumphal acquittal in Frankfort, 
about the middle of December, he went to Nashville to gather 
his recruits ; but the proclamation of the President was now 
pressing hard upon him ; and, while he had always overrated 
the number and zeal of his adherents, this evidence that those 
who joined him must be prepared to encounter the opposition 
of the government, paralyzed his work. The President after- 
ward declared§ his judgment that the first blow which the en- 
terprise received was from the energy of Governor Tiffin at 
Marietta, and that the plot was crippled by the activity of Ohio. 

*Cable, Creoles of Lou., p. 153. + Gayarr^, Am. Dom. p. 169. 

I^Wilkinson, I., App., 96. ^Jefferson's Works, V., p. 28. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 55 

Burr went down the Cumberland river with only two boats, 
although he expected a force to come overland from Tennessee, 
• and meet him on the Mississippi near Natchez. Burr knew 
thoroughly the condition of the road from Nashville to Bayou 
Pierre, the point on the Mississippi near Natchez, where the 
force was to rendezvous. On the twenty-seventh of December 
Burr joined Blennerhassett,* who had nine boats, at the mouth 
of the Cumberland; and they all proceeded down the Missis- 
sippi. Six days after they came to Chickasaw Bluffs, where 
was Lieutenant Jackson with a detachment of United States 
troops. Burr strove to induce him to join them, putting before 
him in strong colors what brilliant results would follow for those 
who survived, and while he did not state fully what his plans 
were, he assured him that they were honorable. Jackson, how- 
ever, was firm in refusing. The situation for Burr had now 
become desperate. Those who had pledged to him their ad- 
herence altogether withdrew on the appearance of the Presi- 
dent's proclamation, which showed the lawlessness of the under- 
taking. All the western states called out their militia, and 
the most rigid measures were taken all along the Mississippi to 
quell the expedition. Burr saw that he must destroy all the 
military features of his enterprise, and declare that it was only 
intended as a colonizing party for the Washita country. Accord- 
ingly one night he ordered all the chests of arms to be thrown 
into the Mississippi river. 

Burr landed at Bayou Pierre, thirty miles above Natchez, in 
the Mississippi territory, on the seventh of January, 1807. On 
the seventeenth he surrendered himself to Cowles Mead, the 
acting governor, f only declaring his wish not to fall into the 
hands of Wilkinson, whom he called a perfidious villain, and 
said that if he was sacrificed his portfolio would prove him to be 
a villain. When the case of Burr was given into the hands of the 
grand jury, they declared that there was no evidence against 
him, and, pending his request to be released on his own recog- 
nizance, and hearing that instantly upon his release he was to 

*Blennerhassett Pap., i86, ^Wilkinson, II., 337. 



56 THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

be arrested again by the governor, he changed his clothes and 
escaped across the country eastward. His company, in the 
meantime, were in great confusion, and with no money. The 
leaders were arrested by the United States authorities, and the 
others scattered, and went back home. 

In the meantime Wilkinson, aroused at last from his indeci- 
sion, seemed determined by a frenzied, histrionic* activity 
against Burr to conceal his previous complicity. He reached 
New Orleans on the twenty-fifth of November ordering Fort 
Adams to be dismantled, which should have been rather strength- 
ened, if, as he declared to the President, seven thousand men 
were coming down the river with Burr. He made requisition on 
Governor Mead for his militia, in order to take them to New 
Orleans. This, however was refused on the reasonable ground 
that it would strip the country of all means of resistance. He 
arbitrarily arrested in New Orleans those whom he suspected of 
complicity with Burr, some of whom could give very damaging 
evidence against himself; and with the force of the army re- 
sisted the process of the courts for their release under the 
habeas corpus act. 

Burr subsequently declared that he never had any idea of 
dividing the Union, that his hopes of prospering in his expedi. 
tion against Mexico had depended upon war being declared 
between Great Britain and Spain, that this expedition was 
defeated by the death of Pitt early in 1806, and that Wilkinson 
thereupon lost heart in the project. Wilkinson confessed, how- 
ever, that in October he said to Swartwout he would not 
oppose Burr's expedition. f 

Burr was rearrested on the seventeenth of February, 1807, 
in northern Alabama, traveling with a companion, under an 
assumed name, endeavoring to make his way to Pensacola, then 
under the king of Spain. He was charged with high misde- 
meanor, in setting on foot within the United States a military 
expedition against Spain, a friendly power; and also with treason 
in assembling an armed force, with design to seize New Orleans, 

* Cable, Creoles of Lou., p. 153. Eaton, p. 403. •f'Clark, p. 163. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 57 

to revolutionize the territory attached, and separate the western 
from the Atlantic states. It was with great difficulty that Burr 
could be taken through the country as a prisoner. He appealed 
to the civil authorities against his military arrest. The ladies 
everywhere espoused his cause, and children were named after 
him.* 

At length Burr reached Richmond, Virginia, where, under 
Chief Justice Marshall, his trial began on the seventeenth of 
August. There was a brilliant array of counsel on each side_ 
Political feeling ran at that time very high, and the greatest 
excitement prevailed in Richmond and in Washington over 
the progress and results of the trial. The President was a 
Republican, and was bitterly opposed to Burr. The Chief Jus- 
tice was more of a Federalist, and was scrupulously exact and, 
some thought, almost timid, in his rulings. The President 
wrote at the time to a friend: " The Federalists make Burr's 
cause their own and exert their whole influence to shield him 
from punishment. It is unfortunate that federalism is still pre- 
dominant in our judiciary department, which is consequently 
in opposition to the legislative and executive branches, and is 
able to baffle their measures often, "f 

Testimony was received touching Burr's conversations, show- 
ing his intent before overt acts began. In addition to the evi- 
dence given by General Eaton, which has been already referred 
to, Colonel Morgan and his son testified that in August, 1806, 
Colonel Burr had, at their house in western Pennsylvania, de- 
clared that, in less than five years, the west would be totally 
divided from the Atlantic states, and that the Alleghany moun- 
tains would be the line of division. He said that great numbers 
were not necessary to execute great military deeds; all that 
was wanted was a leader in whom they could place confidence, 
and who, they believed, would carry them through, He averred 
that, with two hundred men, he could drive congress, with the 
President at its head, into the river Potomac, and that, with 
five hundred men, he could take possession of New York.| 

*Pickett's His. Alabama, ad loc. >|- Jefferson's Works, V, 165. JBurr's Trial, I, p. 566. 



5o THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

Evidence was also received concerning the transactions on 
Blennerhassett's Island, which, however, took on an unmistak- 
ably warlike character only after Burr had left. Long argu- 
ments were heard as to the competency of other evidence which 
was offered. At length the court ruled ^ that no testimony rela- 
tive to the conduct and declarations of the prisoner elsewhere 
and subsequent to the transactions on Blennerhassett's Island 
could be admitted, because such testimony, being in its nature 
corroborative, and incompetent to prove the overt act in itself, 
was irrelevant until there was proof had of the overt act by two 
witnesses ; that the overt act on Blennerhassett's Island was 
proved, but the presence 'of the accused was not alleged; that 
his presence when and where the overt act was committed was 
necessary. In consequence of this ruling, the jury, on Sep- 
tember the first, 1807, found that Burr was not proved guilty 
of treason, under the indictment, by any evidence submitted 
to them. 

In the trial for misdemeanor. Burr was, on the fifteenth of 
September, discharged, because the evidence sustaining it was, 
under the former ruling of the court, excluded. It was also 
ruled f (i) that the declaration of three persons, not forming 
a part of the transaction, and not made in the presence of the 
accused, is not to be received ; (2) that acts of accomplices, 
except so far as they prove the character and object of the 
expedition, cannot be taken in evidence; (3) that acts of accom- 
plices in another district, even though they constitute substan- 
tial cause for a prosecution, cannot be taken in evidence unless 
they go directly to prove the charges made in this district ; 
(4) that legal testimony to show that the expedition was mili- 
tary, and destined against Spain, is to be received. 

Burr was accordingly remanded for trial to Ohio, where the 
offense was said to have been committed ; but no further proceed- 
ings against him were had. Indignation was very widely 
expressed at the result of the trial. The President himself 
wrote thus to General Wilkinson]: about the failure to convict 

*Burr's Trial, I, 549. -f Burr's Trial (Robertson), I, 539. J Jefferson's Works, V., 198. 



THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 59 

Burr: "The scenes which have been enacted at Richmond are 
such as have never before been exhibited in any country where 
all regard to public character has not yet been thrown off 
They are equivalent to a proclamation of impunity to every 
traitorous combination which may be formed to destroy the 
Union. However, they will produce an amendment to the 
constitution which, keeping the judges independent of the 
Executive, will not leave them so of the nation." Burr went 
abroad directly after the trial. 

The case of Blennerhassett, which was really determined by 
the result of Burr's trial, was remanded to Ohio, but no further 
prosecution followed. He was distressed by the losses which 
he had brought on himself by his adherence to Burr. He 
became, however, completely disillusioned as to Burr's perfidy 
and sensuality in the closer intimacy which he had with him 
during the trial in Richmond. Although both Burr ana his 
son-in-law, Alston, had promised to make good the advances 
which he had made, they neither of them did so, although 
Blennerhassett, in the loss of his home and in his utter need 
otherwise, begged them for a repayment of what he had sacri- 
ficed for Burr. In consequence he suffered from poverty to the 
end of his life. His son, Joseph Lewis Blennerhassett, was 
engaged in the practice of the law, and died in Lincoln county, 
Missouri, in 1862. 

Wilkinson, in the trial of Burr, of course gave only so much 
evidence against him as his hatred of Burr drew forth, and as 
would conceal his own complicity. He was true to his craven 
instincts to the last. Immediately after the conclusion of the 
trial in Richmond he sent his confidential agent, Walter Burling, 
into Mexico, as he declared, ' ' on grounds of public duty and 
professional enterprise, to attempt to penetrate the veil which 
concealed the topographical route to the City of Mexico, and 
the military defenses which intervened, feeling that the equivo- 
cal relations of the two countries justified the ruse."^ Burling 
was really sent to apprise the viceroy of the attempt of Burr, 

*Wilkinson I., p. 417. 



6o THE WEST AND THE AMERICAN UNION. 

and to demand, on Wilkinson's behalf, a compensation of two 
hundred thousand dollars for, as he declared, "great pecuniary 
sacrifices in defeating Burr's plan, and, Leonidas-like, throwing 
himself into the pass of Thermopylae." Yturrigaray, the vice- 
roy, received the communication with indignation, and told 
Burling that General Wilkinson in counteracting any treasonable 
plan of Burr's did no more than comply with his duty, that he 
would take good care to defend the kingdom of Mexico against 
any attack or invasion, and that he did not think himself author- 
ized to give one farthing to General Wilkinson in compensa- 
tion for his pretended services. The demand having been con- 
temptuously refused, Burling was ordered to leave the country.* 

Thus ended the last attempt at separating the western country 
from the American Union. As all such attempts had their 
strength in the distance and isolation, and consequently the 
ignorance and prejudice of the sections, it may be confidently 
believed that in the comparative homogeneity of the affections 
and interests of all the people of the land now, by reason of 
rapid and constant communication, no such attempts will again 
be made, or, if made, will gain Cv^en the limited standing and 
proportions which those in the past have done. 

Our multiplying railroad bars and telegraph wires are more 
than material lines of communication. Themselves created by 
the physical and commercial needs of a great people, they are 
the sensitive nerve connections of a complex social organism. 
Along them pulse the currents of intelligence and an identical 
interest, and they convey and perpetuate the throbbings of 
simultaneous impulses and common national aspirations. In 
these are furnished, under God, the sure hope and presage of 
the perpetuity of our American Union. 

*Davis, Burr, XL, pp, 401-4. Blennerhassett Pap., pp. 210 and 578. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




